Dr. Nils Hoernle is board certified in internal medicine
and is currently accepting new patients.
This is the second in a series of articles on small changes you can make in your everyday life that can lead to big improvements in your overall health.
You Are What You Eat
“You are what you eat,” it is sometimes said, but in a sense, you are also what your ancestors ate.
It is now becoming clear that our bodies function best on a certain type of diet, and that that diet was determined quite a long time ago. In fact, it is very similar to what our distant grandparents ate. Just as we inherited our eye color and facial features from our parents, and they from their parents going back many generations, we also inherited our metabolism - the ability to burn or store foods - from our ancestors.
In America today, the foods we eat are very different from the foods our ancestors ate, and from the foods our bodies run best on. As a result, much of the illness and premature death in America today comes from eating foods that are not suited to our metabolism. Just as cars are designed to burn certain types of fuel, we are designed to run on certain types of food. If we put low grade fuel or dirty oil into our car, it will run poorly, gum up the fuel system, and eventually break down. In much the same way, eating the wrong types of foods causes us to run poorly by storing excess fat, producing damaging waste products, and gumming up our arteries. This translates into some of today’s most serious illnesses, including diabetes, cancers and heart disease.
What then, are the right kinds of food to eat? A useful approach is to consider what our ancestors ate. Even a hundred years ago, before the advent of steel-rolling grain mills, grains were whole and provided more fiber and nutrients than today’s refined grains. People ate far fewer carbohydrates, and those they ate were healthier. Potatoes, originally from Peru, were smaller and more nutritious, rice was long-grain and unpolished, bread was whole grain, and pasta made from unrefined wheat.
The more generations back you go, the higher the fiber and the rarer the refined carbohydrates. But in addition to eating more complex carbohydrates, our ancestors also ate a larger proportion of vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries, fish and wild game.
This diet was very rich in antioxidants from the deeply-colored vegetables, fruits and beans. It contained healthy omega-3 oils and monounsaturated fats from fish and nuts and seeds. The protein from wild game was generally lean, and thus low in artery-clogging saturated fat. This combination of a low saturated fat and high fiber, fruit, vegetable, fish and nut diet resulted in less plaque-related heart disease.
In contrast, the typical American diet is nearly the opposite of this. It is surprisingly low in fiber, vegetables, fruits, nuts and fish, and alarmingly high in refined carbohydrates. It is high in saturated fats from corn-fed feedlot-fattened red meat, butter, cheese, palm and coconut oils. Even worse, it is high in hydrogenated trans fat, which raises LDL and lowers HDL cholesterol. Trans fats are found in most snack foods, fast foods, cookies, crackers, pastries, margarines and shortening.
While saturated fats raise cholesterol, healthy mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats actually lower bad cholesterol (LDL) and raise good cholesterol (HDL). Nuts are a good source of the healthy fats, esp. walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, and peanuts. Avocados are rich in mono-unsaturated fats, and virgin olive oil is especially rich in beneficial oils. Canola oil, safflower oil, and peanut oil can also help to lower cholesterol.
Fish is an excellent source of healthy fats and protein. In particular, wild salmon, trout, chunk light tuna and sardines are all high in omega-3 oils and low in mercury. Beans, such as chick peas and soy beans, are a great source of protein, and kidney beans, red beans, black beans and lentils, in addition to containing lots of soluble fiber, are loaded with antioxidants. Other good sources of protein and of calcium are low-fat yogurt, cottage cheese and bean curd.
Fiber (25 to 50 grams a day) is also very important. Soluble fiber is found in fruits and beans, and it helps to lower cholesterol. Insoluble fiber is the indigestible roughage in vegetables, fruits and whole grains. It helps bulk up the stool, keep the stomach and intestines well protected by mucous, and it keeps the bowels regular. Fiber may also calm an irritable bowel, speed the removal of toxins from the body, and possibly reduce the risk of diverticulitis, colon cancer and other gastrointestinal cancers.
In stark contrast to yesterday’s super-nutrient foods, however, stands the modern American diet, which is alarmingly high in refined carbohydrates. These are the “white foods,” including French fries, potatoes, bread, rice, pasta, crackers, cereal, cookies, candy and sugar drinks. To get a sense of how widespread our carbohydrate consumption is, one has only to stroll through the middle aisles of the supermarket – the bread aisle, the cereal aisle, the cookie aisle, the soda aisle, and the snack and chips aisle.
These refined carbohydrates, in contrast to whole wheat, brown rice, and a few cereals such as rolled oats, have been stripped of their fiber, vitamin and mineral content during processing. What remains is a skeletonized high-calorie fuel that rapidly enters the bloodstream as sugar. This sugar triggers high levels of insulin, a hormone that drives it into the cells where most of it is rapidly converted to fat.
Obesity is the end result when carbohydrates are repeatedly consumed throughout the day. Unlike high fiber foods and whole grains, refined carbohydrates cause surges of sugar to enter the bloodstream, and high insulin levels become necessary to drive this sugar into the fat cells. The sugar can be easily stored as fat, but as long as insulin is present, the fat can’t be burned, even if we’re hungry. The fat is effectively trapped in our bodies, leading to obesity. Obesity, in turn, often leads to diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, arthritis and many cancers.
In essence, the body we inherited from our ancestors isn’t designed to run on the fuel we’re feeding it. Whether we like it or not, the food that tastes the best is probably the worst for our health. Our ancestors craved salt and sugar and fat and carbohydrates precisely because they were scarce, and in times of scarcity they were beneficial. But in America today, where food is plentiful, manufacturers have exploited these cravings. The typical high-fat, high-carbohydrate, high-sugar, high-salt meal in the average dinner is undermining our nation’s health, and has begun to erode the gains in longevity conferred by improved sanitation, hygiene and medical advances. Life expectancies are already declining in the older age groups as a result of hypertension and an epidemic of obesity.
Ultimately, it is we who control what we eat. If we attempt to keep in mind what our ancestors ate, we can come up with a well-balanced and healthy diet that is wholesome and satisfying. It is important to learn to read ingredient lists, and to choose healthy single-ingredient foods. The more ingredients, the less control we have over what we eat. Look for high fiber, high nutrient foods, including whole grains, wild rice, colorful fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts, fish, lean chicken, yogurt and virgin olive oil. This will keep your body running smoothly and prevent some of the most common illnesses.
After all, if we wouldn’t put low grade fuels and dirty oils into our cars, should we really be putting them into our bodies?
Read the previous article on staying healthy as you age.
Read the next article: The Perfect Storm of Obesity: Part I
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