Tag Archive for: healthy food

My Nutrition Questions for This Next Year

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Is 100 years a long time? How about 10,000 years or a million? The answer: it depends on the reference point. In human terms, 100 years is a long time, but in terms of changes within a specific type of food or in terms of the microbiome, maybe not.

In the next year, there are three major questions and several smaller ones I plan to research and, I hope, come up with some answers.

Where Is the Nutrition “Sweet Spot”?

How much vegetables and fruits do you need to eat to offset some foods considered not as good? For example, cabbage is a great cruciferous vegetable; not everyone likes it cooked, but they often like coleslaw. Here’s my question: how much sugar and mayonnaise can you add to cabbage in your coleslaw before it’s not a healthy food? Real mayonnaise and sugar can be adjusted in the dressing recipe, so you’re getting the flavor but not quite as much sugar and fat.

Berries with ice cream? Carrots with brown sugar? Ketchup on French fries? Cucumbers and lettuce with Italian dressing? On and on. We need the phytonutrients. How much good cancels the bad?

Can We Get All The Nutrients We Need from a Well-Balanced Diet?

This has been my question for almost 25 years; now I’m trying a different approach to getting the answer to that question.

Has the Microbiome Changed Significantly Since We’ve Changed the Food Supply?

Plant and animal husbandry have resulted in plants and animals with more desirable traits while eliminating others. Have the microbes been modified in response to what we’ve done?

There are more questions, such as does our inability to make vitamin C impact the ability to metabolize other nutrients or medications? Are the LDL-cholesterol sub-fractions more important than the total-LDL number?

The Bottom Line

My objective to answering my questions is to make it reasonable to modify diet, exercise, and supplements to achieve the best health we can at any age. But I do know the answer to one: what’s the most important factor in obtaining good health? The answer to this question is, as always:

What are you prepared to do today?

New: The Optimal Performance Program Goes Digital!

Starting today you can buy and download the Optimal Performance Program audio and workbook. While I’ll be back on the road starting this summer, I’ve decided to go digital with my keystone energy-building, weight-management, and fitness product—not only because so many of us prefer digital, but also because shipping costs preclude the product from being offered around the world. From the semi-ketogenic meal plan, eating at timed intervals, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT), you can train to have the energy you need exactly when you want it.

I’m introducing the download version only for only $29.95; Member and Insider discounts apply. Regardless of age or current fitness level, you can achieve Optimal Performance. Get your copy today!

        Dr. Chet

Found: The Dietary Sweet Spot

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Did you have any hot dogs this week after considering the minutes you might lose? How about eating some salmon for what you might gain? If it at least gave you pause, that’s good. The researchers did this study because “research shows that the overconsumption of food detrimental to health and underconsumption of food beneficial for health are leading causes of the health burden in the U.S.” For me it’s a little simpler: finding the sweet spot of nutrition.

Consider the enormity of what the researchers did. They not only considered the health benefit of over 5,000 foods but also the environmental impact. They would not have been able to do the calculations without the use of today’s advanced computing power.

Before I go further, a couple of points: a reminder that this is a theoretical study limited by what we think we know about the nutritional contribution of food to health and disease. Some food-disease relationships may change as we learn more. Second, the results are based on today’s data. As more precise data are collected, the HENI scores may change.

The Sweet Spot

Based on the current study, the researchers concluded that changing nutritional intake by just 10% can benefit both our health and the environment. The change has to be targeted and amounts to an average of 190 calories per person. If we can substitute servings of nuts, vegetables, legumes, and some forms of seafood for about a serving of beef or processed meats, it can yield an increase of about 48 minutes per day for a person over the age of 25—not in longevity but in healthy life minutes.

That’s it. Wherever you’re starting from, change 10% of your calories from questionable choices to healthy ones and you can impact your health. You don’t have to become a vegetarian or switch to an all plant-based diet. Just make a few substitutions; order broiled seafood instead of a steak or burger. Have a handful of nuts instead of a candy bar. Get a baked potato, easy on the butter, instead of fries, and a side salad instead of the onion rings—not every time, but at least one out of ten. If you’re starting from a really poor diet, you’ll probably want to add another 10% after you get this one established, but you don’t have to make immediate radical changes to start improving your health. Opt for slow and steady changes that you can maintain.

One more point: this research didn’t examine weight loss. It’s simply a caloric substitution from poorer choices to better ones to improve your health. While eating better may result in losing weight, that wasn’t the point of the study.

The Bottom Line

This study is as close to finding that sweet spot of nutrition as we have right now. While it’s theoretical, it does attempt to quantify the benefits of something I’ve said for years now: eat better. Combine that with eating less and moving more, and you’re bound to see health benefits.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Nature Food. 2021. (2):616–627.