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Nutrition Facts & Fads

NUTRITION, FACTS, FADS, AND FALLACIES

by Dr. Evan S. Baltazzi, former Professor of Research, Pasteur Institute, Paris, France.

Everybody wants to live a long and healthy life and to look good in the bargain. Because of this universal longing, there is a lot of money to be made in this field and there are plenty of clever people trying it successfully.

A carefully cultivated prevalent misconception relates to looking good by being slim and trim and being healthy. This is a deliberate confusion of aesthetics with health. Looking good relates to aesthetics and these are in constant flux and have changed from place to place and throughout the ages. Today Venus de Milo would be considered by some gurus as overweight. Yet few people would dispute the fact that the Greeks and an eye for beauty as shown by their magnificent creations. Sometimes being healthy and looking good go hand in hand but often they do not; one may look like a Greek god and have serious health problems. Strangely enough, all the people I know that had by-pass heart surgery are slim and trim. While this observation has no statistical validity, yet it is a curious fact.

On the contrary, feeling good has always been the same throughout the ages, and has always been identified with vibrant energy, vitality and the ability to experience what the French, who are experts in the matter, call "la joie de vivre" the joy of living.

One may truthfully say that in nutrition and health we know a few things that we are sure about, we think we know many more without being quite sure, and there is a deep and vast ocean of things we do not know. One thing we do know since Hippocrates of Cos, is that food is our best medicine. With the skyrocketing costs of health care in our country, where drugs are the most expensive in the world, twice as expensive than in Canada, where the same drug meeting the same quality standards is several times cheaper per unit when used in veterinary medicine, it is very important to take advantage of all the means at our disposal to stay healthy. Health care relates less to the availability of good doctors, more sophisticated apparatus and procedures or to cheaper health insurance and prescription drugs, but more to the degree that each one of us takes direct responsibility for his or her own health rather than relegating it to a third party.

I IN THIS PAPER I SHALL CONSIDER THE PRACTICAL aspects OF NUTRITION FOR HEALTHY PEOPLE WHO WISH TO STAY SO AND I SHALL ATTEMPT TO DISPEL SOME CONFUSION THAT EXISTS IN THIS FIELD WHILE GIVING PRACTICAL GUIDELINES THAT ANYONE CAN TEST ON HIMSELF. AFTER ALL EACH ONE OF US IS THE GREATEST EXPERT IN THE WORLD ABOUT HIMSELF.

I SHALL NOT ADDRESS WHAT I CONSIDER NUTRITIONAL MICRO-MANAGEMENT WHERE ONE IS GIVEN SO MUCH OF A CERTAIN NUTRIENT PER KILOGRAM OF WEIGHT OR SUCH PERCENT OF THIS AND ANOTHER PERCENT OF THAT. THIS IS OK FOR PROFESSIONAL DIETITIANS AND NUTRITIONISTS EMPLOYED BY HOSPITALS AND SPAS. I DO NOT KNOW OF MANY HOMEMAKERS WHO PREPARE FOOD BY PERCENTAGES AND DOLE IT OUT TO EACH RECIPIENT ACCORDING TO HIS BODY WEIGHT.

WHILE I AM AWARE OF THE LITERATURE ON SUCH TOPICS AS THE INSULIN/GLUCAGON AXIS, THE EICOSANOIDS, THE ALPHA LINOLENIC ACID, THE EICOSAPENTAENOIC ACID, ARACHIDONIC ACID, W-3 FATTY ACIDS AND THE DELTA-6 AND DELTA-5 DESATURASES, I SHALL NOT ADDRESS THESE AREAS. I AM ALSO AWARE OF THE INCLINATION OF RESEARCHERS TO MOVE FROM HYPOTHESIS TO THEORY AND FROM THEORY TO TRUTHS THEY WOULD LIKE TO BELIEVE UNIVERSAL. EVEN IN THE SO-CALLED EXACT SCIENCES PEOPLE MAY AGREE ON FACTS AND YET INTERPRET THEM IN VASTLY OPPOSING WAYS.

I ALSO KNOW THAT MUCH OF THE KNOWLEDGE ON NUTRITION COMES FROM ANIMAL STUDIES AND FROM STUDIES SPONSORED BY POWERFUL FINANCIAL INTERESTS. WHILE THERE IS NO DOUBT ABOUT THE INTEGRITY OF RESEARCHERS IN THIS FIELD, IT IS ALSO TRUE THAT ANY ONE COMING UP WITH RESULTS OPPOSED TO HIS SPONSOR'S INTERESTS WILL HAVE HIS SPONSORSHIP DISCONTINUED. ALSO THAT ANY POSITIVE RESULTS ARE USED TO FEED INTENSE AND OFTEN HYPERBOLIC PUBLICITY. BESIDES, THERE ARE NOT TOO MANY PEOPLE INCLINED TO GO AROUND PREPARING THREE MEALS A DAY EVERY DAY WITH A RECIPE BOOK IN HAND EVEN IF THESE WERE RIGHT FOR EVERYBODY, WHICH IS DOUBTFUL. SO I SHALL ADDRESS WHAT I BELIEVE ARE THE PRACTICAL aspects OF DAILY NUTRITION, PUTTING IT BLUNTLY, OF FEEDING OURSELVES.

If you need medical advice you should get it from your physician. Granted, there are not too many who know the interactions between drugs and nutritional supplements now in vogue. There is much controversy in this field, WHERE KNOWLEDGE IS MOSTLY EMPIRICAL AND SCANTY, as well as in the optimal ingestion of vitamins, macro and oligo elements and I shall not address these areas. Even without me giving a simplistic overview of the various elements of nutrition at the risk of boring you, you must have an fair idea of the complexity of nutrition and I will show that attempts to quantify it and come up with generalizations should be TAKEN WITH A BIG GRAIN OF SALT.

I cannot think of a better way to share with you my observations than to relate to a discussion on one of the public channels about nutrition by a panel of experts some of whom became millionaires promoting their diets, books, and pills. I must say that I disagree with what was said. I have majored in biochemistry, nutrition, and food chemistry. A lifetime experience in research in varied fields allows me to evaluate the validity of a methodology for gathering and interpreting data. Our panelists' views were based on wrong implicit assumptions and I might add self interest:

1. They assumed that the results presented have statistical validity. They have not.
2. They implied that each of their particular diets is good for everyone. One size does not fit all.
3 They assumed that the various diets they championed were easy to follow and practical for all. They are not.
4. And above all, they discounted the psychological and other parameters impacting nutrition defined as the sum total of processes related to the intake and use of nutrients that keep us alive and functioning.

1. There is a science and a well developed technology for accurate sampling of any given item in view of analysis. In statistics, like in any other analytical method, the validity of the results obtained depends essentially on how representative of a whole is the sample selected for analysis. The most sophisticated and accurate analysis on a poor sample is worthless. One can collect a sample of a few grams that is representative of the cargo of an oil tanker, of the contents of a silo, or of several hundred bags of a chemical. This approach, however, cannot be used with people and for this reason, with the exception of epidemiological statistics, where the sample is quite large, the other medical and health statistics are on rather shaky ground. When one hears that such and such study involved hundreds of people, one has to ask where did all these people come from? They are usually from a small geographical area, with similar lifestyles, living under similar environmental conditions, they are often genetically related and living under similar stresses. Here is a typical case of a term that many use and few understand. Stress as defined in physics is a force or system of forces that acting upon a body tend to deform it. What happens to the body is strain. All people living in a given area are subject to similar stresses, yet their individual responses (strain) are different. Learning how to combat strain is essential for health and the concentration/relaxation exercise I have developed has proven very effective in this respect. How then can such sampling as I have explained, be representative of 260 million of Americans and of 6 billion of people in the world? In all fairness one has to admit that we have to start somewhere and people are not bags of flour or tankers full of oil. Yet to attach a lot of weight to these statistics is unwarranted. Incidentally this is the reason why medical theories change a bit like the wind.

I remember in my lifetime that tomatoes went from good to bad and from bad to good several times, now they are presumed good when cooked because of the presence of lycopene, a strong free radical scavenger. Here is again a term that is not well understood by many who use it. I have worked extensively with free radicals, and I can tell you briefly without going into details. that the free radicals generated in the aqueous media of our body are extremely reactive and unless a scavenger is right there where they are generated it won't do much good. Incidentally the scavengers for low molecular weight free radicals are legion. Free radicals are molecules with "bachelor" electrons, unpaired electrons that want to find another suitable electron to pair up with. Most are very reactive and unstable transient reaction intermediates. In the body they occur in processes such as the destruction of invading organisms by the white blood cells. They are considered to play a role in various illnesses such as Alzheimer's, macular degeneration, heart conditions, arthritis, and others. Free radicals are kept under control by natural enzymes, but when these fail, they attack body elements in their immediate vicinity. (lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids). Other well-known flip-flop examples relate to poly and mono-unsaturated oils, partially hydrogenated oils, simple and complex carbohydrates, fiber, eggs, nuts, to animal vs. vegetable proteins and to many others. All have spawned special diets.

2. One diet does not fit all. Some diets put great emphasis on lots of animal protein and fat, others on low fat intake, while others on carbohydrates (without a clear definition), others yet emphasize calorie intake, vegetarianism, milk and eggs, and so on. There is a bewildering number of diets. It is well known that nutritional requirements change from person to person, from activity to activity, from environment to environment, from age to age, from conditioning to conditioning. A lumberjack and a white collar worker do not have the same nutritional needs, an Eskimo and a black African living on the Equator do not have the same nutritional needs, a young man of twenty does not have the same requirements as a man of sixty. Men have similar yet different requirements than women. There is also social conditioning and specific conditioning differences. For instance, some claim that one has to have a rich breakfast a lighter lunch, and an even lighter dinner. They also advise not to eat after five pm to avoid gaining weight. Yet on the European continent some peoples have a "continental" breakfast, a rich lunch followed by one or two hours of rest and a very substantial dinner taken anywhere from 8 pm to 12 midnight. Their health and life expectancy are equal or better than ours. Besides one does not see in Europe so many grossly overweight people as in our country. There is also a lot of talk about the so-called "Mediterranean diet." Yet there are many such diets . 

Their common points are the abundant use of olive oil, olives, cheese, yogurt, garlic, tomatoes, and a great variety of vegetables including many legumes. They put more emphasis on fish rather than on land animal protein. And this not for every meal. In short moderate to low animal protein intake. It is also forgotten that besides the type of food, the climate and life style of the Mediterranean peoples and their societal interactions have a lot of bearing on their health and longevity. Specific conditioning may be related to the family, the environment or to the living and working conditions. There is also a strong genetic factor. Some people need meat more than others, salt more than others, vegetables, fruit, and complex carbohydrates more than others. And these requirements change with age and conditions. There is no "silver bullet" diet. Here is a simple yet complex equation concerning body weight. If the intake of assailable calories is larger than the expenditure, one gains weight, if lesser he looses weight. The key word here is ASSAILABLE, There is a lot of calories in coal but not for humans, and there is a lot of calories in bran for a goat, but not for us. Some people have a more efficient assimilation than others and some have a higher metabolic rate. This is why two people of similar physiques and lifestyles may eat the same food and one may loose weight or stay slim, while another gains weight. Some people complain that they gain weight just by "looking" at food. Perhaps it is because they are not looking carefully at what they are eating.

3. Now let us assume that one knows exactly his exact nutritional requirements, a rather tall order, how is he going to meet them? First, he must plan his meals or follow suggested planning. Then, he must get the necessary foodstuff fresh and naturally ripened. And that is not as easy as it sounds. Then, he must know how to prepare them so that they retain most of their valuable nutrients. Then, his preparation has to be palatable. If not, eating day in day out food that is supposedly "good for you" but one's nature rejects, will not benefit him much in the long run. For most people who have to make a living, except if they can afford to pay some expert to do the work for them, this is very time consuming and neither easy nor very practical.

4. What about the psychological parameters of nutrition? We all know of people who will not eat oysters, frog legs, eels, rattlesnake, chocolate coated ants and grasshoppers and other such delicacies and people who after having enjoyed a meal got violently ill when they found out what they had eaten. I personally know of a man in the then French Cameroon who enjoyed a fish dinner only to get sick when he learned he had eaten boa constrictor instead of fish. And a similar one in Italy with a person eating cat thinking it was rabbit. During the return of the Lewis and Clark expedition its members were starving next to the Columbia river full of salmon. They preferred to eat horse flesh rather than fish. Men have starved in forests where protein rich food could be obtained just by upturning a rotten log and picking up worms and grubs. In all countries known for their fine cuisine, presentation of meals is given careful attention. In some even fast food is artistically presented. When we are upset we loose appetite and if we eat anyhow, our digestion suffers. Following a regimen we dislike, with which we have a persistent feeling of being deprived, cannot be beneficial in the long run. In fact, I believe that if one has a craving (not just a taste) for some food, there is in it something his organism needs and he should eat it. If it is a bad combination like a cheeseburger with bacon and fries, once in a long while will not hurt him. It is good for the morale, unless he is under doctor's orders to absolutely avoid it. 

Furthermore, history is replete with examples of people surviving under conditions that by whatever is known about known for their severe regimen are also known for the longevity of their members. The French Canadian voyageurs, in spite of their strenuous exertions had a remarkably good health supported by a monotonous regimen of thick pea soup with biscuits and lard. Our nature sustained either by spiritual or moral values, or by a powerful will to reach a goal can surmount many assumed nutritional deficiencies. Each meal is to be enjoyed. Since digestion and assimilation involve chemical reactions and these depend on the surface area of the material involved, good and deliberate mastication is helpful, not only for good digestion, for the enjoyment of a meal, but also for eating less. All living entities and particularly humans are very complex with many parameters that may act singly or in synergy, together. There are some generalities, yet each one of us must find his own best way. Of course, we all need proteins, fats and oils, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins and we can get them all as needed from proper eating. In considering general guidelines for good nutrition let us keep in mind three age old maxims: "Nothing in excess," " When in doubt abstain." " Nature abhors vacuum and hates unbalance." The mechanisms in our body work in opposing pairs precisely to prevent unbalance. What I will be sharing with you is what we are using at our home.

1. Eat as great a variety of quality foodstuff as possible, but in moderation. It is silly to say eat 30% of this and 10% of that. This is good for professional nutritionists employed by hospitals or spas or for those selling books, recipes, and pills. What such recommendations achieve is to confuse people while promoting sales. One can only say that for many grown up people it is beneficial to eat less and to follow a diet leaning more toward fruit, vegetables, and legumes. For most, after the growing needs of youth are met, animal protein is not necessary with each meal. Avoiding animal fats, cutting down on salt intake as one grows older, and preferring olive oil to all other fats are also beneficial. Besides, nutritional requirements change with age, occupation, and other factors, as earlier mentioned. Avoid going overboard in any one direction concerning proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Extreme diets in any one direction may be good for some but certainly not for all. Keep them in relative balance and remember that the kind as well as the quantity of what you eat are both important. Think of nutrition rather than diet and use your imagination, experiment.

2. Prefer simple preparations. They are the easiest often the tastiest as well as the healthiest. The more a food is processed the less desirable it becomes. Stay away from processed fats like partially hydrogenated oils. Deep frying is no good since the same fat, used again and again, breaks down with heat (it pyrolyses) into toxic products. Avoid frying, but if you are to fry something, pan fry it with olive oil. Avoid heating it beyond gentle sizzling. It is better to use microwave ovens for heating food only. Not enough is known on extended exposure of foodstuff to microwaves.

3. Follow the Chinese admonition to stop eating when you are still a little hungry. Eat smaller portions, this is the precise definition of moderation.

4. If you can, do not eat by the clock, eat when you feel hungry. You are hungry because your organism needs nutrients. Listen to it.

5. Whenever you can, enjoy your meals. Do not make it a habit of grabbing a sandwich and running, because sooner or later you will pay the price. Besides you will loose much of the true joy of eating.

6. If one eats a perfectly balanced diet, a rare occurrence, he should not be needing vitamins (with the exception perhaps of vitamin E, although views differ) and supplements. In our experience over many years, cod liver oil helps to ward off colds Take it in gel caps, up to 75% of the daily recommended dose of vitamin A. Then if you are taking multivitamins with beta carotene, which is the water soluble precursor of vitamin A, you will avoid the toxic effects of vitamin A overdose. Decide for yourself if you need supplements and vitamins or not. Keep also in mind that they are not drugs and will take some time to show results. If you expect fast results you will be disappointed.

7. Do not take any one's word for Gospel, including mine. Be willing to try and experiment. You are the greatest expert in the world as far as you are concerned. If you feel well and full of energy, you are on the right track. Keep it up. Else, be willing to try another path. You should take your vitality as a point of reference rather than some numbers on tables put together by people who do not know you and you do not know. It is not necessary to repeat here the admonitions about alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. A word about exercise. There are many people who lived long healthy lives without exercising. They did not feel the need for it and managed without it quite well. Yet for others exercise is not an option (I am one of those), they do not feel good without it. Most people fall between those two extremes. Naturally, like in anything else, genes and conditioning play a huge role. Each one of us is different. Here also, as with food, you must like your exercise and enjoy it, then you will benefit from it to the maximum. The quality and use of air and water are also an important part of nutrition, part that is often passed under silence. For this reason exercising outdoors in fresh air is far superior than exercising indoors in various clubs. Deep abdominal breathing is quite beneficial while exercising. Another element affecting nutrition is light. Not only because it affects our mood. but also because it affects the metabolism of sterols (Vitamin D).

A word of caution about the term "natural." Look at it more as a sales ploy than anything else. There are plenty of "wholly natural" violent poisons and toxins like strychnine, euphorbine and the toxins of anthrax and botulism. Go for simplicity in foods and avoid foods with long lists of ingredients, even if "natural," I would like also to say something about the weight/height/body fat tables. These were arrived at on the basis of statistical studies sponsored mostly by insurance companies. Genetically and morphologically, there are people predisposed to gaining weight in various places of their body while others are not. What happens when one is seriously ill? The body mobilizes its defenses and spends its stored reserves. The sick person looses weight. What if he does not have any to loose? Think about it. Many of the fad diets tout rapid weight loss. Any rapid weight loss is a sign of serious trouble. If it is deliberate it gives the organism quite a jolt and the latter reacts so that in the long run the weight is gained back.

Those who are predisposed to gain weight must wage a life long battle against it. There is no easy or fast fix. If they make a fetish out of matching exactly their weight to the tables put out by various gurus, they usually achieve only psychological damage to themselves. These tables must be used mostly as a rough guideline and one should not worry if he is 10 or even 15% over their given values. If you are, but are feeling great and full of pep, you are on the right track. Not enough is known about genetically engineered products. Much more publicly financed research is needed to establish their safety. Presently such research is financed by powerful financial interests aiming at huge monetary gains. A grave danger lies in the fact that once released genetically engineered products replicate themselves and they cannot be recalled like defective cars. And this should be an area of careful consideration and grave concern. Pollution of our environment on land and sea has reached serious proportions. Eating poultry raised on hormones and contaminated feed or fish from contaminated oceans and seas offers a dubious advantage. Huge amounts of pollutants, including heavy metals like mercury, are released in the atmosphere and all return to earth so that the premium paid for "organically grown" produce can hardly be justified. Only global solutions to pollution problems will alleviate the situation.

TO RECAPITULATE THE MAJOR POINTS:

1. ASSUME THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR NUTRITION. WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. YOU WILL HAVE TO AT SOME TIME. BETTER SOONER THAN LATER

2. SO AS TO GET AS MANY NUTRIENTS AS YOU NEED EAT THE WIDEST POSSIBLE FOODS YOU CAN. AVOID FALLING INTO A ROUTINE

3. PREFER SIMPLE WAYS OF PREPARING FOOD AND AVOID PROCESSED FOODS PARTICULARLY PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED OILS. PREFER OLIVE OIL, THEN LIGHT SESAME OIL, THEN CANOLA OIL. AVOID DEEP FRIED FOODS AND FRIED FOODS IN GENERAL. FRY IF YOU MUST WITH A LITTLE OIL AT LIGHT SIZZLING TEMPERATURES

4. EAT IN MODERATION, THAT IS EAT WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY AND STOP EATING WHEN YOU ARE STILL A LITTLE HUNGRY. ENJOY YOUR MEALS EAT SLOWLY AND CHEW WELL.

5. LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. USE YOUR OWN VITALITY AS YOUR SPECIFIC POINT OF REFERENCE AND AVOID THE ANXIETY OF REACHING FOR GOALS SET BY OTHERS. RELAX.

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