Low fat and Low Carb pros & cons part 2...

Today's post: Friday, 6-5-2008

Low fat diets were & still are promoted as a way to lose excess fat & prevent heart disease.

Low carb diets have been promoted as a way to lose fat but attacked as sometimes increasing heart disease risk.

There are three kinds of fats your health will be better if they are very low or even zero in what you eat.:

We posted these 3 yesterday as well. But we add some commentary today.

1. We now know that trans fats & all kinds of hydrogenated vegetable oils are basically heart & cardiovascular disease fertilizer. A diet low in these is unsafe. A diet higher than low is frighteningly unsafe. For these fats, low isn’t low enough. Zero is the right amount of them to eat. That’s right -- absolutely none if you can possibly arrange it.

Unfortunately, you have to read labels on every food that has one to be sure to avoid these as they are still in thousands of food & processed foods in stores. And, at this writing, you have to be very careful of restaurant food & ask what kinds of oils they use.

And, you have to simply avoid virtually all commercial baked goods to avoid these oils. Since the other ingredients of commercial baked goods tend to be sugar, high fructose corn syrup, & refined grain flour, which are the exact carbs that are the WORST for your health & waistline, avoiding commercial baked goods is likely a very good idea, healthwise.

>>> Here’s the take home. Note that the two articles from yesterday support all of the above about trans fats.

a) If you value your health, make an enormous special effort to never eat foods with hydrogenated oils or foods that list ANY trans fat content above 0.

Since this kind of fat helps trigger heart attacks, strokes, peripheral artery disease, kidney disease, circulation related mental decline, & erectile dysfunction, it’s that important. This is a kind of fat it PAYS to be so low in your consumption that you approach eating zero amounts of it.

And, health experts & doctors today all agree. There is no disagreement on this of which I am aware.

This can be both logistically and emotionally difficult. But it is that important to do.

If they list zero but the label includes hydrogenated oils, the label is WRONG. They can LIST zero if the product actually has 0.499 grams of trans fat per serving. So if you eat 5 small servings of a snack food with 0.42 grams of trans fat per serving that is LISTED as having 0, you actually take in 2.0 grams of trans fat if you eat that snack food. Ouch !!

Another example is pie. I’ve always loved eating pie when I’ve had the opportunity. And, I’ve loved pit crust combined with the filling. Guess what. If you don’t know that you or the home cook who made it used butter or some other real food fat to make the crust, you MUST assume it’s been made with shortening which contains ONLY transfat loaded hydrogenated vegetable oil. So, when I am served pie now, unless I know it was cooked with butter or some other real food, I only eat the filling & leave the crust.

b) The carbs it helps your health most to avoid are those that tend to be combined with transfats. These are the ones that tend cause you to be fat & sick. They are high glycemic carbs that tend to cause heart & cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, AND obesity. Ouch !!

So, make an enormous special effort to never eat foods or drink drinks that contain high fructose corn syrup. (And, just as with transfats, it’s now in so many commercial baked goods & processed foods, you have to be a bit paranoid & ALWAYS read labels to avoid it.)

Regular sugar is MUCH safer to eat than high fructose corn syrup – but not by as much as people with a sweet tooth would like. So eating sugar or foods that contain it a few times a week is dramatically better for you than eating it a few times a day. And, working to keep your carbs moderate to low will help you achieve that.

It also helps if you eat something with fiber or a health OK fat with your sugar or spice your sweet treat with cinnamon. These things buffer the high glycemic effect of the sugar.

And eating that much is likely only OK IF you eat a lot of vegetables, usually eat it only a few times a week AND exercise regularly.

Try as best you can to avoid eating ALL refined grains. These foods are almost as bad for you & your waistline as high fructose corn syrup. And, they are still everywhere. These are a great kind of carb to simply eliminate from your food intake 100 %.

They are high glycemic, have virtually no fiber, & have very little nutrition in them compared with whole grains.

Refined grains are quite literally junk food. If you must eat grain, eat ONLY whole grains & not too much.

If you eat some whole wheat bread or non-“quick” oatmeal you’ll weigh less & be much healthier than people who eat a lot of refined grain foods.

(By the way, white rice is a refined grain food.)

2. Saturated fat in your diet in large enough quantities will increase the amount of bad LDL cholesterol in your blood & increase your risk of heart disease. However, that effect is dramatically increased if you eat too many high glycemic, high carb foods.

Here’s the more comment I promised from yesterday.:

It is true that people who go on a high protein, low carbohydrate diet tend to lose fat. And, it’s true that when they lose fat they tend to get improved cholesterol readings even if they have been eating fatty meats & some full fat dairy products. (As we’ve posted on before, protein turns off hunger longer & more completely than carbs AND carbs tend to turn off hunger at first and then turn it back on high later. Protein foods don’t.)

However, studies in both France AND China show that in those parts of each of those countries where people eat the most saturated fat, the rate of heart disease is highest.

In my opinion, this proves pretty conclusively that a low or low moderate amount of animal based saturated fat is MUCH better for you than a high intake is.

And, other studies have found that a Mediterranean diet that is higher in extra virgin olive oil & fish & a variety of vegetables produces less heart disease & type II diabetes & cancer than a diet high in butter & fatty meat.

So, wild caught fish, nuts, beans, and a moderate amount of lean meat from animals fed only grass or only pasture fed & NEVER fed grain, & perhaps some eggs, other wild caught seafood, & nonfat or very lowfat dairy ARE better for your health than fatty meat, cream, full fat cheese, & butter.

The one piece of good news is that IF you eat a lot of vegetables, usually eat the low saturated fat proteins listed above, AND exercise regularly eating fatty meat, full fat cheese, & butter occasionally is likely OK.

3. Most animal fat from most commercially raised meat animals is fed grain that has been raised using pesticides & herbicides. That means the meat you get is high in pesticide & herbicides, higher by far than animals that are pasture fed or grass fed only. And, it’s even higher than in produce raised using pesticides & herbicides !! These animals bioconcentrate the pesticides & herbicides in their fat. It’s also too high in omega 6 oils than is Ok for good health & too low in omega 3 oils. Farmed fish, unfortunately, is even worse.

Similarly many fatty meats from grain fed animals are sold as sausage, bacon, salami, ham, & sandwich meat. Those foods & farmed fish tend to be high in nitrates & nitrites & have been implicated as causing cancer & colon cancer in particular.

So, it’s clear that there ARE 3 kinds of fat it’s very desirable to avoid: Transfats, excessive saturated fat, & fat from unnaturally raised animals. Since the majority of high protein foods in stores now is this third kind, this makes it a bit difficult to follow a high protein, low carb diet.

So, wild caught fish, nuts, beans, and a moderate amount of lean meat from animals fed only grass or only pasture fed & NEVER fed grain, & perhaps some eggs, other wild caught seafood, & nonfat or very lowfat dairy ARE better for your health.

Mercifully they are becoming more available. And by eating them & some extra virgin olive oil & avocados, you can get enough omega 3 & other essential oils to support good health.

AND, studies show that people who lose weight by cutting back on the worst carbs & fats and by doing regular progressive strength training & interval cardio are successful. In addition they are MUCH healthier & likely to KEEP OFF the fat they lose than people who eat a very, very low fat diet.

So the bottom line is both low fat & low carb approaches have some ways in which they are valuable & some ways in which they are not good for you.

It depends TOTALLY on which KIND of carbs & fats & protein foods you eat AND whether or not you exercise regularly in addition to eating right.

Low fat and Low Carb pros & cons ...

Today's post: Thursday, 6-5-2008

Low fat diets were & still are promoted as a way to lose excess fat & prevent heart disease.

Low carb diets have been promoted as a way to lose fat but attacked as sometimes increasing heart disease risk.

There are three kinds of fats your health will be better if they are very low or even zero in what you eat.:

1. We now know that trans fats & all kinds of hydrogenated vegetable oils are basically heart & cardiovascular disease fertilizer. A diet low in these in unsafe. A diet higher than low is frighteningly unsafe. For these fats, low isn’t low enough. Zero is the right amount of them to eat. That’s right absolutely none if you can possibly arrange it.

Unfortunately, you have to read labels on every food that has one to be sure to avoid these as they are still in thousands of food & processed foods in stores. And, at this writing, you have to be very careful of restaurant food & ask what kinds of oils they use.

And, you have to simply avoid virtually all commercial baked goods to avoid these oils. As I’ll cover in today’s post & tomorrow’s, since the other ingredients of commercial baked goods tend to be sugar, high fructose corn syrup, & refined grain flour, which are the exact carbs that are the WORST for your health & waistline, avoiding commercial baked goods is likely a very good idea, healthwise.

2. Saturated fat in your diet in large enough quantities will increase the amount of bad LDL cholesterol in your blood & increase your risk of heart disease. However, that effect is dramatically increased if you eat too many high glycemic, high carb foods. (I’ll have more to say on this subject in tomorrow’s post.)

3. Most animal fat from most commercially raised meat animals is fed grain that has been raised using pesticides & herbicides. That means the meat you get is high in pesticide & herbicides, higher by far than animals that are pasture fed or grass fed only. And, it’s even higher than in produce raised using pesticides & herbicides !! These animals bioconcentrate the pesticides & herbicides in their fat. It’s also too high in omega 6 oils than is Ok for good health & too low in omega 3 oils. Farmed fish, unfortunately, is even worse.

So, it’s clear that there ARE 3 kinds of fat it’s very desirable to avoid: Transfats, excessive saturated fat, & fat from unnaturally raised animals. Since the majority of high protein foods in stores now is this third kind, this makes it a bit difficult to follow a high protein, low carb diet.

Today I’m posting two articles suggesting that low carb diets are actually better for you than low fat diets. As I’ll discuss tomorrow, there is some truth to this. But there are some complicating factors as well that are not in these articles.

Given the above info, I think the second article is a good bit more helpful than the first. But they are both a good example of what much of the current thinking is on the subject now.

(I’ll have more to say in tomorrow’s post.)

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

When Will Low Fat Diets Go Away?

By James LaValle, R.Ph, CCN, ND

For the average person, the changes we've seen as to how diet contributes to heart disease have been interesting, but for many people they have also been exhausting and confusing.
For two decades we were taught that diets high in fat and cholesterol contribute to heart disease; this teaching has been dubbed the "diet-heart hypothesis." Low fat diets were recommended by every large health organization, and people adopted the low fat way of life. There was only one problem -- heart disease rates did not drop. They continued to climb.

Over the years, the diet-heart hypothesis has been crumbling one wall at a time. First, we learned that only one type of fat clearly contributes to heart disease, and that some oils even have health benefits. So trans-fats are out and olive oil is in.

Then, newer studies showed that eating dietary cholesterol does not have a significant impact on raising cholesterol in the blood, which is still considered a risk factor for heart disease.1 So we are "allowed" to eat eggs and shrimp again. So far, most of you are still on board and rolling with the punches.

In the meantime, low-carb diets held some serious surprises. People did not want to believe it at first, but low-carb diets showed they do indeed lower risks of heart disease and diabetes. Longer-term studies have even shown no deleterious effects from them, despite the higher animal protein, saturated fat, and cholesterol intake.

In fact, low-carb diets are the primary reason that the whole saturated fat and cholesterol ideas have pretty much collapsed. Low-carb diets have been studied now from nearly every angle, and what is consistently seen is that low carb diets -- even though they are higher in saturated fat and cholesterol -- lower risk of heart disease and even diabetes, a disease that greatly increases risk of heart disease.

What concerns me however, is that despite evidence to the contrary, and despite the urging of the most prominent researchers in this area, the American Heart Association (AHA) still has not changed its dietary guidelines; they still recommend lowering one's intake of saturated fat and cholesterol to lower risk of heart disease.5
Because we have not yet had a paradigm change on this by the AHA, most practitioners hold back from recommending a low-carb diet and continue to instead recommend a low-fat diet. And this creates a lot of confusion for the average person who is just trying to decide what they should really be doing.

While all of this may be tiring for you to keep track of, the progression of information has actually been extremely helpful in defining what REALLY causes heart disease -- and that is inflammation. Therefore, anything that increases inflammation in the body, like insulin, caused by high-carb diets is the real risk factor for heart disease.

When it comes to diet and heart disease, consumers need to rest assured in the fact that the best diet for prevention of heart disease is one that is lower in carbs, but high in dietary antioxidants. The only fat to concern yourself with, is trans-fat. I no longer advise lowering intake of cholesterol.

But what about saturated fat? I can tell you that clinically, I do not find saturated fat to be a factor in elevated cholesterol, even "bad" LDL cholesterol. In fact, almost all of my clients experience improved lipid profiles by lowering carb intake, not saturated fat.
Over the past few years, I have seen conflicting headlines and messages about saturated fat. As the one remaining factor in the debate on diet and heart disease, saturated fat deserves our time and attention.

In my next article I will discuss where the science is now, and what we will need to keep our eye on when it comes to saturated fat.

Getting Over Fear of Fat

By Laura LaValle, RD, LD

We've noticed an interesting phenomenon in our practice -- many people are still afraid to eat fat. Even those who are experiencing the benefits of a low-carb, higher-fat diet can't seem to make the change without having some guilt or concern about the butter on their sautéed vegetables or the cholesterol in their steamed shrimp.

I appreciate the concern very much. People should take seriously the tsunami of diabetes and heart disease that can result from a poor diet unless they take quick and serious action. A preventive diet is right up there with not smoking and getting enough exercise in avoiding these life-threatening health risks.

In implementing a healthier diet, the problem of course is that the message from the medical establishment has changed so many times over the years, that people are not sure what to believe.

Fortunately, the new recommendations are now soundly in the low-carb camp.1 In fact, let's just sum it all up. The latest research shows that the best diet for heart disease and diabetes prevention restricts the intake of trans fats and starchy and sugary foods. It is rich in non-starchy vegetables and salads, includes a little daily fruit but not too much, and offers a variety of healthy proteins and fats. High antioxidant foods like red wine and low sugar dark chocolate can also be enjoyed.

This diet naturally contains higher amounts of cholesterol, saturated fat, and overall fat than has been recommended in the past. But despite that fact, study after study has shown it improves all the factors that will help avoid diabetes and heart disease. So it is now being urgently promoted by leading health professionals as the recommended diet to replace the old low-fat dietary guidelines.

So how can we get over our fear of fat? All some people will need to do is remember what it was like eating very low-fat diets. Meals lacked full rich flavor. We got dry skin and hair, were fatigued, felt depressed, had achy joints and menstrual cramps, or even had deficiencies of essential fatty acids.

But the most noticeable side effect was that we often did not feel full and satisfied with our meals. And the increased carbohydrate intake we adopted during that time led to a rebound in our weight and lipids anyway.

So if you're not yet convinced to include more fat in your diet, keep these facts in mind:

" Each and every cell in our body is surrounded by cell membranes that need healthy fats as part of their structure.

" Without the flexibility of healthy fats, nutrients can't enter cells and waste products can't be disposed of as efficiently.

" Neurotransmitters can't send and receive as well.

" You may not be consuming enough cholesterol for healthy cell membranes and the production of bile, sex hormones, adrenal hormones, and vitamin D.

" Your diet may be lacking omega-3 fats to fight inflammation in the body, help with healthy brain function, raise "good" cholesterol levels, lower triglycerides, and reduce blood pressure.

" If you do not eat coconut oil and butter, you may be deficient in butyric acid that improves digestion, and lacking in enough healthy dietary fat for the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.

The best way to get over your fear of fat is to try the lower carb, antioxidant rich higher fat and protein diet, and see what happens in your body. Besides getting a smaller waist and losing a percentage of body fat, you should feel better and more satisfied with the food you can eat.

And most importantly, if your blood glucose, insulin, and lipid profiles all improve, you can trust that your body is thanking you for the change.

3 ways to live longer & better…..

Today's post: Thursday, 1-24-2008

A few days ago there were 3 stories in the online news that show how to live longer & better.

1. People who were fit enough to exercise hard on a treadmill lived a lot longer than people who were hardly able to do so.

Of course, some of the difference was likely because someone who is in failing health is less likely to exercise or to test well on this kind of test.

But the pattern of the results suggests strongly that the lack of physical challenge & sedentary lifestyle vs regular, vigorous exercise was the main cause.

As readers of these posts know, progressive strength training & cardio or aerobic exercise that has regular if brief really vigorous bursts are the two best ways to become fit.

Even 20 minutes of progressive strength training on two days a week with at least one day of rest in between each week plus even 10 minutes of really vigorous aerobic exercise on at least three of the other days a week, will put you nearly as close to the most fit category as a much more time consuming set of exercises.

2. People with high blood levels of vitamin C were significantly less likely to have strokes than people who did not.

The researchers said they thought that the people in their study who had the highest levels of vitamin C ate the most fruit & vegetables & that this gave them even more protection than just the vitamin C alone.

It’s now known that eating at least two servings of raw vegetables & two of fruit has many other health benefits, so the researchers may well have been correct.

However, vitamin C by itself is clearly protective for your heart & blood vessels.

So, to live longer & feel better consider:

a) eating at least one serving of raw cauliflower or broccoli each day. (Cooking them is OK for eating them for fat loss; but it removes most to all of their cancer fighting effects & vitamin C.)

b) eating at least one serving of another kind of raw vegetable, whether it’s more broccoli or cauliflower, or tomatoes, green beans, peas, carrots, or salad greens.

& c) taking at least 500 mg a day of vitamin C (& 1,000 or 1500 mg may be better) each day.

2. Older people with high blood levels of vitamin E were literally more physically able than people who did not on 3 separate tests.

In this one, the researchers thought that suggested the people who had high levels of vitamin E at more nuts, seeds, olives &/or extra virgin olive oil, & salad greens.

I suspect that they may also have found that people who eat a health OK diet are also more likely to also exercise.

But, here again, eating these foods is clearly protective of your health in many other ways.

People who aren’t allergic to them who eat nuts regularly have higher HDL readings & live years longer than people who don’t. Extra virgin olive oil is one of the most health OK sources of fats & oils and it contains many antioxidants & phytonutrients from the olives it was extracted from besides. Salad greens also have vitamin C, folic acid, & help keep off excess fat.

And, natural vitamin E has been found protective in many ways as well. Gamma tocopherol that comes in the mix of tocopherols from foods apparently helps prevent cancers, for example

So, to live longer & feel better consider:

a) eating nuts like walnuts, pecans, & almonds regularly if you aren’t allergic to them.

b) using extra virgin olive oil instead of butter or other oils most of the time.

c) eating salad greens from safe sources several times a week.

& d) taking 200 iu of natural vitamin E with other mixed tocopherols each day.

(There is reason to believe natural vitamin E is both safer & more health protective than man made.

Complex organic molecules like alpha tocopherol have left handed & right handed, or mirror image, versions. The natural forms are only one of these. Man made tends to be the mirror image version or a mix of the real thing & the mirror image version. Unfortunately, only the natural version is effective in most cases. And, the mirror image may be harmful, particularly in larger doses.)

There may be other sources, but Solgar makes a vitamin E supplement with 200 iu of natural alpha tocopherol & some beta, delta, & gamma tocopherols also. I take that one myself.

Between the recent studies & the other documented health benefits of these practices, it’s clear that if you follow them all you’ll likely live longer & in better health.

3 new ways to longevity – some you can eat….

Today's post: Tuesday, 11-20-2007

You may have read that eating a high nutrition but low calorie diet seems to produce much longer, healthier lives in both people & other animals even one celled ones.
Some people are trying that. But there are ways you can produce much the same effects without such severe calorie restriction.

The researchers found that this eating pattern triggered a genetic effect. These eating conditions turn on a family of genes called sirtuins (“silent information regulator proteins”). Sirtuins apparently produce cellular messagers that turn off or turn down the aging process at the cellular level.

Here’s two ways to help get that effect. The second one is more fun & forgiving than the first.

1. The first way to get some of this effect is to eat right for health. Without deprivation, you can eat many kinds of nonstarchy vegetables each day in salads, in main dishes, as stand alone dishes, as snacks, like cauliflower florets or radishes, or in omelets. That increases your intake of fiber & many kinds of micronutrients. If you can get them, organic vegetables are better for you.

This is one of the secrets to being less fat without feeling hungry. And, it simply makes you less hungry for the higher calorie foods you eat.

Eating many high nutrition whole fruits but not quite as many, like kiwifruit, blueberries, strawberries, & whole apples helps you to eat enough to not be hungry but not take in too many calories -- not as well as vegetables but much better than sugary or fatty foods. And, many of them taste good.

Then add health OK, high quality protein foods & health OK fats like extra virgin olive oil, nuts, & avocados. But don’t overdo the quantity.

Sharply limit or virtually eliminate sweets, baked goods, foods with refined grains, & soft drinks—both diet & regular.

This kind of eating won’t produce this anti-aging effect by itself. But it may help either turn it on some or at least not turn it off by doing the opposite. You will definitely be less fat than eating otherwise would make you.

2. Consuming a natural compound called resveratrol also has been found to trigger the anti-aging effect of sirtuins as well as calorie restriction.
One way to get it is to simply add foods & drinks high in it to what you already eat & drink. Plums, red & purple grapes, blueberries, cranberries, & concord grape juice and red wines are high in resveratrol. Recently I found out that a kind of red wine I’ve not yet tried made from muscadine grapes is quite high in resveratrol. And, virtually all red wines are good sources for it.

The good news is that this means that even drinks & foods like red wine & plum jam, sugary cranberry relish, strawberry jam, & blueberry jam may actually be good for you because of the resveratrol in them. Of course, this is ONLY true if they are made only with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup & if you eat them in moderation. But even so, these are much healthier alternatives than other treats in part because of the resveratrol & other micronutrients they contain.

The other good news is that you can get the amount of resveratrol that looks to definitely trigger the anti-aging effect by taking supplements. Resveratrol in the trans form that does the job is now available as a supplement. Longevinex is the brand that has actually been studied as producing this anti-aging effect. But other brands may also work.

The effects of resveratrol are astonishingly powerful. They include greater energy, strength, & endurance for example. Older athletes, older exercisers, & people who like sex may really like this set of effects.

And resveratrol is also enormously protective of your health, from cutting inflammation levels that tend to produce heart disease, other vascular disease, & arthritis, to apparently sharply reducing all kinds of cancers & other degenerative diseases.

3. Lastly, taking the supplement CoQ10 tends to prevent your mitochondria, the energy producing part of your cells, from turning off as the amount your body provides drops as you get older.

And, I read of a report recently that taking the supplement Ubiquinol directly which CoQ10 metabolizes into in your body had similar effects to resveratrol in sharply slowing the rate of aging. To be sure it was rodents that were in this study not people. But the effects were striking. Those eating normally aged normally. Those also fed CoQ10 aged more slowly. And, those also fed Ubiquinol hardly aged at all in the same time period.

Since taking 100 to 200 mg a day in people increases energy level, effectively lowers high blood pressure, & tends to strengthen the heart and even may help prevent cancer, my very strong suspicion is that adding 50 mg twice a day of Ubiquinol which ensures a robust level of CoQ10 in the blood will also have this anti-aging effect in people.

There are many other supplements which may slow aging in various ways. DHEA is one as are DMAE & Carnosine which help prevent glycation of your cells from oxidation or eating too much sugar.

But resveratrol & Ubiquinol look to be in a class by themselves as to how powerful they are.

This information is new to me. But I now take both of them based on the research reports I’ve read.

Reasons why taking magnesium protects your health ….

Today's post: Tuesday, 10-2-2007

I’ve known for some time that magnesium is an unusually important mineral in nutrition because all the better informed doctors I’ve read on protecting your heart strongly recommend it. And, it is a key mineral in lowering high blood pressure or keeping it from becoming high. It helps increase HDL cholesterol, lowers excess blood glucose, and helps balance sodium as an electrolyte to normalize blood pressure. Each of those effects is heart protective.

These doctors recommend taking 400 to 600 mg a day in addition to eating foods high in magnesium like nuts, seeds, & greens.

And, the added benefit is if you take enough & eat those foods, you will hardly ever get constipated. The fiber in these foods plus the stool softening effect of the magnesium mostly prevent constipation.

So, when I saw the article I reprint below with even more good news about magnesium, I thought you should see it also. It also got my attention by saying most people, possibly including you, are not getting enough of it.

“This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/. “

“The Most Important Supplement You Will Ever Take?

By Anthony Colpo

Magnesium could quite possibly be the most important nutritional supplement you will ever take. Without it, you can't produce adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP), the substance that every cell in your body ultimately uses for energy.

Magnesium has a huge impact on healthy heart function. Deficiencies of this mineral have been implicated in hypertension, atherosclerosis, cardiac arrhythmia, and deadly heart attacks. Low magnesium intake has also been linked to diabetes, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, cramping, and exaggerated harmful responses to stress.

Clearly, magnesium is one nutrient you definitely do not want to skimp on - but that's exactly what most people do.

A survey by the Centers for Disease Control found that most American adults have a woefully inadequate magnesium intake. Per day, on average, Caucasian men get only 352 mg, African-American men get only 278 mg, Caucasian women get only 256 mg, and African-American women get only 202 mg. These amounts are well below the minimal recommended daily allowance of magnesium - 420 mg for men and 320 mg for women.

Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, halibut, tomato paste, spinach, artichokes, cashews, and almonds are some of the foods that are high in magnesium.

But the best way to ensure optimal intake is with supplements. Avoid the oxide form of magnesium, as it is poorly absorbed by the body. Instead, use magnesium citrate, aspartate, chloride, or malate.

My personal favorite is nigari, a Japanese seawater extract that is rich in magnesium chloride. Mix the nigari with water and drink it throughout the day.

Gradually increase your daily dose of magnesium until you notice a loosening of your stools. When this occurs, decrease the dosage slightly and maintain.

[Ed. Note: Anthony Colpo is an independent researcher, physical conditioning specialist, and author….”

* X * X *X *

Our comments:

It is possible to overdose on magnesium if you also take repeated large doses of Milk Of Magnesia on top of supplementing with magnesium & eating magnesium rich foods.

Similarly, I don’t recommend going over 650 mg a day of Magnesium as a supplement.

But taking 400 to 650 mg a day of magnesium plus eating these foods which have other health benefits besides magnesium is a great idea.

How to afford to eat right….

Today's post: Wednesday, 9-5-2007

Health OK foods like beef fed only grass; organic nonfat & 1 % lowfat milk; & pasture raised poultry are a good bit more expensive than the grain fed and now more common varieties.

1. But some of the foods that are the best for you are LESS expensive than the really bad foods.

By making those foods your staples, you can either eat right for very little or include some of the more expensive health OK foods without spending more.

2. Another key is to stop buying the worst foods. Why pay more for foods & drinks that will make you sick if you eat or drink them at all often?

1. Here are some of the best for you foods that are inexpensive.

a) Unless you are allergic to them, beans & lentils are very good for you AND very cheap.

This is particularly true if you buy them dry in packages or in bulk & cook them yourself.

My wife & I cook up a batch every weekend that’s just enough to eat for a week. Then we put them in smaller containers to cool in the refrigerator which helps them say good & cool more quickly. That way they are virtually instant food the rest of the week.

They are high in protein. They are high in soluble fiber. And, I just found out recently, they are high in antioxidants. By eating them as staple foods you can eat well on very little.

You can flavor them with onions which are good for you and also inexpensive.

And, since you will do better with some health OK oils, you can flavor them with a small amount of extra virgin olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil does cost more than beans and lentils; but it usually costs less than butter or meat or cheese. And, it is MUCH better for you.

Lastly, beans & lentils are much better for you than fatty and grain-fed meats. And, they cost far less. If you eat eggs, nonfat & 1% lowfat milk, wild caught fish, nuts, and other more health OK protein foods along with them, beans & lentils can do a great job supplying your protein needs.

I usually eat mine with extra virgin olive oil & tomato sauce flavored with garlic. It tastes good & both the tomato sauce & the garlic are good for you.

b). Wild caught canned salmon is surprisingly inexpensive. It’s high in the omega 3 oils that promote good health and that grain feed meats tend to be very short in. And, it has very little of the excessive omega 6 oils that grain fed meats are high in.

Wild caught canned salmon does have some salt. But if you eat very few other salted foods & unless you are salt sensitive and fighting high blood pressure; & if you don’t over do the amount of salmon you eat, you can balance the salt with the next really inexpensive kind of food. That kind of food is very high in potassium which tends to lower blood pressure & counterbalance the salt.

c) Frozen green and nonstarchy vegetables are quite inexpensive; convenient; & extremely good for you.

Broccoli has many, many health benefits. So I cook up a batch of frozen broccoli every two weeks and have a serving almost every day for dinner.

I expected that adding this to my dinner most days would help me lose 10 pounds. I did. Then I lost 20 pounds more. To be fair, I was also exercising regularly & also cut back a bit on beer and wine. But the very low caloric density of any green nonstarchy vegetable is so low & the filling fiber is so high, any of them is a superb choice to help you get & stay trim.

Frozen green peas, green beans, chopped spinach, brussels spouts, & cauliflower all work as well for this.

d) Oatmeal; eggs; and nonfat and 1% lowfat milk are a bit less good for you than the first three kinds of foods. But they are more health OK than most foods and only moderate in price.

2. The other key is to stop buying the worst foods. Why pay more for foods & drinks that will make you sick if you eat or drink them at all often?

I’ve seen other shoppers in grocery stores where 90 percent of the foods in their basket are these kinds of foods. That’s a LOT of wasted money.

a) These snack foods, packaged foods, & refined grain baked goods are low in nutrition and fiber so they don’t make you feel full or feed you well.

And, to make them taste good, they tend to have ingredients like excessive sugar, high fructose corn syrup, excessive salt, and often today are made with transfat loaded partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.

If you eat them more than about once a month, you’ll make yourself fat & sick. Why pay money to do that?

NOT buying them frees up money to spend on good quality health OK foods.

b) This is gradually changing, and there are some exceptions, but fast food tends to be similar with similar ingredients. French fries are one of the worst foods of all for your health.

For many people, the bad for you fast foods are half their food intake each week. Ouch.

You can do better.

Either bring your food from home; get health OK foods at the fast food places; or eat at a restaurant that serves health OK foods.

You can save your money by NOT buying the bad for you fast foods.

c) Research has found that both regular & diet soft drinks are even worse for you. They tend to cause disease and both help make people fat. And, many young people and less well to do people drink LOTS of them.

The good news is that most fast food places do offer plain water also.

And, at home, green tea & black tea & sparkling waters are usually good choices besides plain water.

Coffee without creamer & black or with 1% lowfat milk or even a very small amount of half and half is even MUCH better for you than caffeinated soft drinks.

Adding spices, more expensive health OK foods and more variety can help you enjoy eating healthy besides taking these two steps.

But these two steps can save you more than enough to pay for those foods. And, in a pinch, eating this way plus taking vitamins can keep you healthy on very little money.

Why NOT to eat today’s farmed salmon….

Today's post: Wednesday, 8-15-2007

For many years, at special occasions, I liked to order salmon in restaurants.

I don’t do that anymore. Every time I ask if the salmon they use is farm raised, they always say yes. (Hopefully, that will gradually change.)

And, I’ve now learned that farm raised salmon tends to not have the full health benefits of wild caught salmon. This is largely because, like factory farm raised cattle & poultry, farmed fish are fed grain & other processed feeds instead of eating their natural diet.

Even worse, farmed fish are MUCH higher in PCB’s, & pesticides & herbicides, & other organic chemicals.

Monday, I found out, farmed fish today have even worse problems.:

>>> This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

“Why JS Should Avoid Farm-Raised Salmon (and Why You Should Too)
By Jon Herring

Last week, I received an e-mail from an ETR reader helps to illustrate a few important points. JS writes:

"First, I would like to congratulate you on an excellent newsletter. I know you're busy, so I will get straight to the point. I eat [Brand X] Pink Salmon every day. Basically, I want to know is it dangerous to eat that much?"

There should be nothing unhealthy about eating a lot of salmon. However, you shouldn't eat any food EVERY day. It can cause an allergy to that food. In fact, doctors specializing in food allergies report that many people are allergic to their favorite foods for this very reason.

But there is a bigger issue here: JS is eating a brand of salmon that I am fairly certain is farm-raised. And that could very well be detrimental to his health.

According to laboratory tests commissioned by Environmental Working Group, farmed salmon is the most PCB-contaminated source of protein in the U.S. food supply. These fish are also known to have harmful levels of mercury, DDT, and dioxin.

And that's not all. Farmed salmon are fed corn and soy meal (not exactly the natural diet of a salmon). Because of this unnatural diet, these fish have far more unhealthy omega-6 fatty acids and fewer healthy omega-3s than wild salmon.

And it has been shown that farmed salmon consume more antibiotics by weight than any other livestock.

So, instead of farm-raised salmon, be sure to insist on wild Alaskan salmon. These fish live in some of the most pristine waters on earth. They have extremely low levels (usually not a trace) of mercury and PCBs. And they are rich in heart-healthy and brain-boosting omega-3s. You can find canned wild Alaskan salmon in most grocery stores, and most health food markets will have fresh fillets.”


My comments:
Eating foods with antibiotics added is a sure way to help increase the number of antibiotic resistant or antibiotic proof bacteria. Even worse, it may well guarantee it will likely happen to you personally.

Why eat such foods? And why not eat the kind that benefits your health instead of harming it?

It may be that future farmed fish may be safe to eat & have more of the health benefits of the wild caught fish. But the challenges are considerable.

It may well be more useful to help see to it that we use sustainable methods of using wild caught fish & help protect them from environmental harm with our resources instead.

Why NOT to eat today’s farmed salmon….

Today's post: Wednesday, 8-15-2007

For many years, at special occasions, I liked to order salmon in restaurants.

I don’t do that anymore. Every time I ask if the salmon they use is farm raised, they always say yes. (Hopefully, that will gradually change.)

And, I’ve now learned that farm raised salmon tends to not have the full health benefits of wild caught salmon. This is largely because, like factory farm raised cattle & poultry, farmed fish are fed grain & other processed feeds instead of eating their natural diet.

Even worse, farmed fish are MUCH higher in PCB’s, & pesticides & herbicides, & other organic chemicals.

Monday, I found out, farmed fish today have even worse problems.:

>>> This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

“Why JS Should Avoid Farm-Raised Salmon (and Why You Should Too)
By Jon Herring

Last week, I received an e-mail from an ETR reader helps to illustrate a few important points. JS writes:

"First, I would like to congratulate you on an excellent newsletter. I know you're busy, so I will get straight to the point. I eat [Brand X] Pink Salmon every day. Basically, I want to know is it dangerous to eat that much?"

There should be nothing unhealthy about eating a lot of salmon. However, you shouldn't eat any food EVERY day. It can cause an allergy to that food. In fact, doctors specializing in food allergies report that many people are allergic to their favorite foods for this very reason.

But there is a bigger issue here: JS is eating a brand of salmon that I am fairly certain is farm-raised. And that could very well be detrimental to his health.

According to laboratory tests commissioned by Environmental Working Group, farmed salmon is the most PCB-contaminated source of protein in the U.S. food supply. These fish are also known to have harmful levels of mercury, DDT, and dioxin.

And that's not all. Farmed salmon are fed corn and soy meal (not exactly the natural diet of a salmon). Because of this unnatural diet, these fish have far more unhealthy omega-6 fatty acids and fewer healthy omega-3s than wild salmon.

And it has been shown that farmed salmon consume more antibiotics by weight than any other livestock.

So, instead of farm-raised salmon, be sure to insist on wild Alaskan salmon. These fish live in some of the most pristine waters on earth. They have extremely low levels (usually not a trace) of mercury and PCBs. And they are rich in heart-healthy and brain-boosting omega-3s. You can find canned wild Alaskan salmon in most grocery stores, and most health food markets will have fresh fillets.”


My comments:
Eating foods with antibiotics added is a sure way to help increase the number of antibiotic resistant or antibiotic proof bacteria. Even worse, it may well guarantee it will likely happen to you personally.

Why eat such foods? And why not eat the kind that benefits your health instead of harming it?

It may be that future farmed fish may be safe to eat & have more of the health benefits of the wild caught fish. But the challenges are considerable.

It may well be more useful to help see to it that we use sustainable methods of using wild caught fish & help protect them from environmental harm with our resources instead.