Food: The Good, The Bad and
The Ugly
or Stop Eating Empty
Calories
By Nat Pernick, M.D.
27 December 2017
This time of year we focus
much of our time and energy on eating, so it is important to think about what
we are eating and how it affects our health. All food is not created equal. In
my recent paper, How Cancer Arises Based on Complexity Theory, I describe the Western diet (high fat, low fiber, low
consumption of vegetables and fruit) as one of nine “chronic pressures” that
cause most cancer cases. With apologies to
Sergio Leone, in this paper I divide food into The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Most Americans can now
easily get enough calories with all required nutritional components through a
balanced diet. High quality food, not contaminated by microorganisms, parasites
or toxins, is relatively inexpensive and available 24/7. Thus, we need not
worry about eating to survive. Instead we should focus on eating to maximize
our health.
The “good” foods are not
controversial: vegetables, fruit and whole grains. This is the recommendation
of US governmental agencies (Health and Human
Services, USDA), the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association. Each meal
should be centered on eating vegetables, fruit and whole grains - they should
not be an afterthought. This is a complete reversal of how we were taught to
eat, in which protein must dominate a meal, and then we throw in some
vegetables and fruit. It necessitates a major shift in our thinking and
behavior that will require time to implement but is important for our optimal
health.
Some foods are “bad” because
they are simply empty calories. They don’t provide the anti-cancer, anti-heart
disease factors found in vegetables, fruit and whole grains. Most people are
obsessed with protein; their meals must be centered around meat, poultry, fish,
eggs or dairy. But as the American Heart Association notes, “You
don't need to eat foods from animals to have enough protein in your diet. Plant
proteins alone can provide enough of the essential and non-essential amino
acids, as long as sources of dietary protein are varied and caloric intake is
high enough to meet energy needs.”
Foods are “ugly” that
statistically have been found to contribute to cancer, heart disease or other
serious diseases. They include foods high in fat, sugar, refined grains or that
are highly processed. Many of these ugly foods are considered to be
“proinflammatory” according to The University of South Carolina Cancer Prevention
and Control Program, which developed the dietary inflammatory index (Shivappa 2014a). A proinflammatory diet is associated
with a higher death rate due primarily to digestive cancer, cardiovascular
disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Food groups associated in
one study with the highest inflammatory index were butter, beer, coffee, fried
food, liquor, high sugar beverages and french fries; those with the lowest inflammatory
index were vegetables other than potatoes, low fat dairy, fish, fruit (not
juice) and nuts (see Table 2).
Eating healthy is a
continuous process of behavior change that takes years to optimize. We should
choose more healthy foods, limit empty calories, stop eating when 70% full,
resign from the “clean plate” club, avoid processed food, not eat for
psychologic reasons, avoid unhealthy food even if easily available and monitor
our caloric intake to maintain a body mass index (BMI) of 18.5 to 24.9.
Let’s start today!
