Few areas of life have as much controversy as nutrition. In the end, everyone needs to eat, and everyone has their own opinion about what’s suitable to eat. Fortunately, many fundamental things are now clear.
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The principles of good nutrition
The healthiest diet consists of whole plant foods. It is low in refined “bad” carbohydrates, unhealthy fats, and almost no animal protein. But at the same time, it contains a lot of slowly digestible “good” carbohydrates, the required amount of “correct” fats, and vegetable protein. “Whole food” (or “real food”) means that the food has not been processed; that is, the food is as close to natural as possible.
- Eat mainly plants (“right” carbohydrates and “right” proteins): vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, soy products, eat a few nuts and seeds in the most natural form – that is, unprocessed.
- What you include in your diet is just as important as what you exclude. Plant foods contain thousands of protective factors against cancer, cardiovascular disease, and aging, as well as very few disease-causing substances.
- Minimize or, better, eliminate animal proteins from the diet and replace them with plant proteins.
- Avoid sugar, white flour, white rice, and other “bad,” fast-digesting carbohydrates.
- Eat 3 grams of the “right” fat a day (omega-3 fatty acid).
- Reduce your fat intake in general, especially the “unhealthy” fats such as saturated and partially hydrogenated trans fats.
- Make your diet as much as possible from organic foods – they are tastier and at the same time contain significantly fewer pesticides that can disrupt the work of the hormonal system.
That’s all! To get rid of chronic disease, you need (to paraphrase Michael Pollan) to eat real food. Plants only. And not too much sugar and fat.
Myth #1: Plant foods are hard to get the protein you need
This is the most common misconception about a plant-based diet. The good news is, it’s easy to get the amount of protein you need from them. It’s just hard not to get it. If you eat various foods and get the right amount of calories, it is very problematic to lack protein.
How much protein does the body need? Most people need only 0.8 g per 1 kg of body weight per day. If you weigh 70 kg, you need 56 g of protein daily. Proteins are made up of 22 amino acids – a kind of “building blocks” that form more than a billion different combinations, just as an infinite number of words can be built from 33 letters of the alphabet. Our body can synthesize 13 amino acids. Another 9 are called essential or irreplaceable, and we must get them from food. Of these 9, you should pay attention only to 3 – lysine, tryptophan, and methionine. The rest of the food is quite a lot.
Plant foods contain these 3 amino acids in varying proportions. If you eat a variety of foods, the body will receive them. Legumes (such as beans) are rich in lysine, but they are also low in tryptophan and methionine. In cereals (for example, in rice), there is little lysine but many tryptophan and methionine. If you eat a dish of rice and beans, you will get the amount of protein you need, no different from what is found in eggs and meat. At the same time, unhealthy substances that provoke diseases will not enter the body.
Here are some examples of complete proteinaceous plant foods:
- Quinoa: 1 cup (boiled) = 8 grams of protein
- 1 cup soybeans = 30 g protein
- 1 cup of soy milk = 8 g of protein (the same amount is found in a glass of regular milk);
- Buckwheat: 1 cup (boiled) = 6 grams of protein
- Unpeeled pumpkin seeds: 1 cup = 12 grams of protein
- Wheat-free bread (made from sprouted grains, whole wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelled): 8 g protein in two slices (not including what’s in your sandwich)
- hummus = 17 grams of protein per cup.
Myth #2: Calories in carbohydrates are bad, but fat isn’t.
It is believed that the body gains weight faster due to “carbohydrate” calories rather than fat. And what is it? Fat contains 9 kilocalories per gram, and carbohydrates (and protein) only 4. This is why eating a lot of fat gives you more calories for a given amount of food. And this fat is more likely to be deposited in your body’s reserves.
Nuts and seeds contain a lot of fat, and therefore calories, but a small amount of these foods in the diet is very useful.
Myth #3: a diet low in carbohydrates and high in protein is healthy.
Many studies have proven that by eating a diet low in carbohydrates and high in fat and protein, people lose weight at the expense of their health. But we should never underestimate how much we listen to what interests us. Specific recommendations now and then appear under different names: the Atkins diet, the paleo diet, the keto diet, etc.
Since there is some truth in them, these rations look attractive. Yes, we eat too many refined (“bad”) carbohydrates such as sugar, white flour, and white rice. Indeed, by reducing their consumption, you will lose weight. That’s all. Eating bacon, sausage, and pork rinds instead of “bad” carbs is still an unhealthy option. It is best to replace them with “good” carbohydrates such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and soy products, not processed in their natural form.
The bottom line is this: The only scientifically proven diet to regress heart disease, slow, stop and heal early prostate cancer, and slow aging, is a diet based on whole, plant foods low in fat and processed carbohydrates. No one has ever conducted a randomized controlled trial showing that a diet high in fat and low in carbohydrates stopped the development of cardiovascular disease. This food impairs the work of the heart. For example, a Harvard study in which participants survived myocardial infarction found that a low-carb diet high in fat increased the risk of premature death by 33% and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 51%. And the stricter people were on this diet,
What happens to your arteries and the various biological mechanisms that control your health when on a low-carb diet? They get damaged. The high animal protein content increases insulin and free fatty acid levels (which provokes inflammation) and decreases the production of endothelial progenitor cells (special cells that “eat” the lining of the arteries and keep them clean).
