Food Over Medicine by Pamela A. Popper, Glen Merzer
Authors: Pamela A. Popper, Glen Merzer
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carbohydrate is the most efficient fuel for the human body.
PP: Right. And when the body is forced to use fat or protein for fuel, it’ll do it, but it’s a very cumbersome process; it’s very stressful and quite toxic to the body to do that.
GM: So we know that carbohydrate is the natural fuel for the human body and we know that fiber is necessary and health promoting to the human body. Yet we look at these flesh foods and they have no fiber and no carbohydrates. It strikes me as a clue that they’re not human foods.
PP: Right. These are not the foods we were designed to live on. Our intestinal tracts are long. We need a lot of fiber to push food through the system, and the primary enzyme that’s secreted in your saliva is amylase, which is an enzyme that breaks down starch. We could anatomically take a little tour through the digestive system, starting with what happens when food enters the mouth, and make a strong case for our design being geared toward consuming plant food.
GM: Which brings us to another high-fat, high-protein, zero-fiber, low-carbohydrate animal food: dairy.
PP: I think that’s the most toxic of all. When I give lectures, I get asked, “If I were going to do one thing and one thing only, what would you suggest I do?” Well, one change alone won’t do the trick if you’re eating the standard American diet. But if you’re going to make an important first step that would improve your health, get the dairy out of the diet. Dairy products have no upside. On the downside, dairy proteins have been linked to asthma, allergies, chronic constipation, chronic ear infections in children, 42 , 43 multiple sclerosis, 44 autoimmune diseases, breast cancer, prostate cancer, 45 and osteoporosis. 46 The likelihood that a genetically susceptible child consuming dairy products will develop juvenile diabetes is actually greater than the likelihood of a smoker developing lung cancer. 47 , 48 , 49 That’s kind of hard to wrap your arms around when you think about it, particularly since our government actually promotes the consumption of dairy products by children.
GM: People who follow the federal dietary guidelines, the ever-changing pyramids and plates that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) spends untold millions revising, believe they’re eating a balanced diet. Are they so wrong in believing that their diet of fruit and vegetables and grains on the one hand, and dairy and eggs and meat on the other hand, is at least balanced?
PP: Only in the sense that it can lead to a balanced need for various types of medical interventions. Here’s something I’ve observed: a family of four people sits down to eat dinner in a restaurant and there’s absolutely nothing on the table they’re eating that I would put in my mouth. You have one person eating a cheeseburger and fries. The next is eating chicken and cheese quesadillas. And the next one is having a spinach quiche. The last one is having a turkey sandwich. They’re all drinking sodas and lemonade. This is the whole family’s dinner. It would probably be heartily endorsed by the USDA and there’s not a single worthwhile, nutritious thing on the table. They just have no idea that the meal they just spent fifty or sixty bucks on is worth nothing nutritionally. “Oh, cheese is good for your bones, the chicken is lower in fat than the beef, and the fries must be better because they’re housemade. Oh, and it’s Diet Coke.” They use all this ridiculous criteria to justify the choice of these foods and believe that they’re doing reasonably well, but it’s all just horrible.
GM: Beyond animal foods, there are other sins in the standard American diet.
PP: There’s the fat content in general, but what makes it really horrendous are the oils; people cook with oils, packaged foods and baked goods contain oil, salad dressings are full of oil, and restaurants overuse it. So people consume enormous amounts of oil and fat in the diet. And
PP: Right. And when the body is forced to use fat or protein for fuel, it’ll do it, but it’s a very cumbersome process; it’s very stressful and quite toxic to the body to do that.
GM: So we know that carbohydrate is the natural fuel for the human body and we know that fiber is necessary and health promoting to the human body. Yet we look at these flesh foods and they have no fiber and no carbohydrates. It strikes me as a clue that they’re not human foods.
PP: Right. These are not the foods we were designed to live on. Our intestinal tracts are long. We need a lot of fiber to push food through the system, and the primary enzyme that’s secreted in your saliva is amylase, which is an enzyme that breaks down starch. We could anatomically take a little tour through the digestive system, starting with what happens when food enters the mouth, and make a strong case for our design being geared toward consuming plant food.
GM: Which brings us to another high-fat, high-protein, zero-fiber, low-carbohydrate animal food: dairy.
PP: I think that’s the most toxic of all. When I give lectures, I get asked, “If I were going to do one thing and one thing only, what would you suggest I do?” Well, one change alone won’t do the trick if you’re eating the standard American diet. But if you’re going to make an important first step that would improve your health, get the dairy out of the diet. Dairy products have no upside. On the downside, dairy proteins have been linked to asthma, allergies, chronic constipation, chronic ear infections in children, 42 , 43 multiple sclerosis, 44 autoimmune diseases, breast cancer, prostate cancer, 45 and osteoporosis. 46 The likelihood that a genetically susceptible child consuming dairy products will develop juvenile diabetes is actually greater than the likelihood of a smoker developing lung cancer. 47 , 48 , 49 That’s kind of hard to wrap your arms around when you think about it, particularly since our government actually promotes the consumption of dairy products by children.
GM: People who follow the federal dietary guidelines, the ever-changing pyramids and plates that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) spends untold millions revising, believe they’re eating a balanced diet. Are they so wrong in believing that their diet of fruit and vegetables and grains on the one hand, and dairy and eggs and meat on the other hand, is at least balanced?
PP: Only in the sense that it can lead to a balanced need for various types of medical interventions. Here’s something I’ve observed: a family of four people sits down to eat dinner in a restaurant and there’s absolutely nothing on the table they’re eating that I would put in my mouth. You have one person eating a cheeseburger and fries. The next is eating chicken and cheese quesadillas. And the next one is having a spinach quiche. The last one is having a turkey sandwich. They’re all drinking sodas and lemonade. This is the whole family’s dinner. It would probably be heartily endorsed by the USDA and there’s not a single worthwhile, nutritious thing on the table. They just have no idea that the meal they just spent fifty or sixty bucks on is worth nothing nutritionally. “Oh, cheese is good for your bones, the chicken is lower in fat than the beef, and the fries must be better because they’re housemade. Oh, and it’s Diet Coke.” They use all this ridiculous criteria to justify the choice of these foods and believe that they’re doing reasonably well, but it’s all just horrible.
GM: Beyond animal foods, there are other sins in the standard American diet.
PP: There’s the fat content in general, but what makes it really horrendous are the oils; people cook with oils, packaged foods and baked goods contain oil, salad dressings are full of oil, and restaurants overuse it. So people consume enormous amounts of oil and fat in the diet. And
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