Frederic Patenaude's Blog, page 33

The Value of High Fat Foods

Now when people hear the term, “high-fat” or “fatty”, they almost inherently associate that food with the word “fattening” as well. We hear all about good fats, bad fats, and even really bad fats, but most people are used to either fully embracing or completely eschewing fatty foods.

Low-fat foods and overall lower-fat diets do tend to allow people to live longer, healthier lives. But one thing that most people fail to recognize is that even though you may eat an overall low-fat diet, that doesn’t mean you can’t include fatty foods and get all the benefits from them.

Although I recommend avoiding oils and eating a low-fat diet in general, it doesn’t mean the total exclusion of high-fat foods such as avocados, nuts and seeds. I eat those foods on a regular basis and recommend including them in most people’s diet.

Check out this video by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, author of, “Eat to Live”, and you’ll discover:

• Why a one-size-fits-all diet approach doesn’t necessarily work for everybody

• How in some cases a diet too low in fat can actually cause health issues

• Why we should start considering our MICRO-nutrients (vitamins and minerals, enzymes, antioxidants) just as much as our MACRO-nutrients (carbs, fats, proteins)

• In what instances taking individual supplement pills may actually increase your risk of getting sick

• How different types of fat impact your health in radically different ways

My answer to the question of “how much fat?” is: it depends. For most people on a plant-based diet, especially if weight loss is a goal, lowering fat content to 15% is a good target. And just like Dr. Fuhrman mentioned, more fat may be appropriate for active people who need more calories. If you’re an endurance athlete, it will be difficult to get all the calories you need from a 10% fat diet.

In practical terms, for many people it will mean restricting total fat intake to about half an avocado a day plus one ounce of nuts. More active people can have several ounces of nuts, or an entire avocado.

For more information, check out the Raw Health Starter Kit by clicking on the ad below.

How to Live 100 Years: Lessons from the Blue Zones

How to Live 100 Years: the Blue Zones Revealed!

An interesting book to read, now almost a classic, is called “The Blue Zones” which researched areas of the world that have an unusual concentration of centenarians (people reaching the age of 100).

I first became aware of this research when I was living in Costa Rica and a group of researchers came to the Nicoya Peninsula to discover that this area of the world was one of those coveted “Blue Zones” where there’s a very high percentage of centenarians compared to the United States.

What I really liked about the book was the fact that it was based on actual, verifiable research.

In the past, many people have claimed that certain cultures have lived a very long time, such as the Hunzas in Pakistan or the Vilcabamba residents in Ecuador. The problem is that the record keeping in those areas was very poor and there was no way to verify the ages of the alleged centenarians. Someone could claim to be 110 years old and in fact be only 90. In fact, this kind of exaggeration was very common.

With The Blue Zones, the researchers had new scientific techniques that could verify someone’s age, and using DNA data they could also trace back the ancestry of the people they met. Combined with verifiable birth certificates, they have located five areas of the world where people have managed to outlive Americans by often a decade or more.

A lot of people who are proponents of specific diets, such as the paleo diet, like to refer to some unproven, anecdotal advice on the “good health” of certain tribes, such as the Inuits. When in fact there are many other people who lived far longer and healthier than this example.

The Blue Zones is the first set of data that looks at populations that have an unusually high number of centenarians. Often these areas have been overtaken by fast food and the health of new generations is poor. But those people that managed to live 100 years or more are from a different era, and have kept the same lifestyle practices that they had in their youth.

These five Blue Zones are:

The island of Sardinia, in Italy
The tropical islands of Okinawa, in Japan
The Nicoya peninsula, in Costa Rica
The religious group of the 7th Day Adventists, living in Loma Linda, California

Those four groups are covered in the book. But last year the group of researchers also uncovered another Blue Zone, on the island of Ikaria in Greece, where nearly 1 out of every 3 people make it to their 90s (Which is very unusual).

Before I go into the characteristics of these people, I want to point out one important point for all those people out there on low-carb, paleo, meat-eating, “hunter-gatherer” diets (or whatever you want to call them).

All of the longest live people in the world — without exception — live on a high-carb, plant-based diet!

You will not find anywhere in the world a group of people — with documented evidence — living that long and that well on a high-fat, high protein, animal-based, low carb diet.

Also, the research done on the 7th Day Adventists debunks the myth that there are no long-lived populations on a vegan diet (more on that later).

What did these people eat?

==> In Sardinia, Italy, the traditional diet was based on whole wheat bread, vegetables, a little goat cheese and wine. Meat was not consumed on a daily basis.

From the book: “Shepherds and peasants in Sardinia have an exceptionally simple diet, which is extraordinarily lean even by mediterranean standards”, a 1941 survey reported. “Bread is by far the main food. Peasants leave early in the morning to the fields with a kilogram of bread in their saddlebag… At noon their meal consists only of bread, with some cheese among wealthier families, while the majority of the workers are satisfied with an onion, a little fennel, or a bunch of radishes. At dinner, the reunited family eats a single meal consisting of a vegetable soup (minestrone) to which the richest add some pasta. In most areas, families ate meat only once a week, on Sunday (…). Interestingly for a Mediterranean culture, fish did not figure prominently into the diet”

Also, the Sardinians consumed goat’s milk and not cow’s milk.

It doesn’t take much nutritional knowledge to see that the diet described above is plant-based and very low in fat, and high in carbohydrates.

===> On Okinawa, the diet was based on sweet potatoes, traditional soy products, rice and vegetables.

When a 102-year old woman (who apparently looks like she’s in her 70’s) describes her routine, she says:

“I wake up at about 6 a.m. and make a pot of jasmine tea and eat my breakfast, usually miso soup with vegetables. (…) At noon, Kamada said, she wanders into the kitchen garden behind her house to harvest some herbs and vegetables for her lunch. “I’ll use mugwork to give my rice flavor or tumeric to spice my soup, she said. “I don’t eat much any more. Usually just stir-fried vegetables and maybe some tofu.” And meat, I asked. “Oh yes, I like meat, but not always. When I was a girl, I ate it only during the New Year festivals. I’m not in the habit of eating it every day.”

She eats a very light dinner before 6 p.m. that might include some fish soup, whatever vegetables are in season, some spring onions, salad and rice. She’s usually in bed by 9 p.m.

When the researcher asks her daughter if she ever drank a Coke, we find out she never once did that in her life, and when she first saw a hamburger she had asked “What do you do with that?”

The typical diet of these Okinawan centenarian was again very simple: vegetables from the garden, green tea, and maybe a little fish, with some rice and tofu.

They also have the interesting habit of saying hara hachi bu, before each meal. It’s a Confucian adage that these elders say before they eat to remind them to eat until they are 80 percent full.

===> The 7th Day Adventists’s diet is more aligned with your typical health-food store enthusiast rather than a traditional diet forced by circumstances. Things like fresh fruit, oatmeal, salads and vegetarian foods are part of the menu. Interestingly enough, not all 7th Day Adventists are vegetarians or vegan. But the vegetarians lived longer than the meat eaters (on average two years longer), and the vegans lived even longer than the vegetarians.

“(…) Adventists who are what we call lacto-ovo vegetarians, meaning they eat eggs and other dairy products, still are an average of 16 pounds lighter than Adventists of the same height who are non-vegetarian. And Adventists who are strictly vegan, which is only 4 percent, are 30 to 32 pounds lighter than non-vegetarian Adventists of the same height. That has a huge impact on cardiovascular disease, on blood pressure, on blood cholesterol, on inflammation related to hormones and the way it stimulates cells in the body.”

For those who think there are no documented populations of vegans in the world who live a long life, they are wrong. The 7th Day Adventists prove exactly that.

===> The Nicoyans in Costa Rica ate mostly corn tortillas, beans, some animal protein such as eggs and some amount of pork or chicken. They ate more animal foods than other long-lived populations, but also ate the most fruit out of all long-lived populations.

From the book: “They asked centenarians what they ate and heard “beans, rice, tortillas and fruit” over and over. (…) A few characteristics of the Nicoya’s diet stood out. Like the people in most other Blue Zones, Nicoyans ate the emblematic low-calorie, low-fat, plant-based diet, rich in legumes. But unlike other Blue Zones, the Nicoyan diet featured portions of corn tortillas at almost every meal and huge quantities of tropical fruit. Sweet lemon, orange, and a banana variety are the most common fruits throughout most of the year in Nicoya.”

An interesting fact of the Nicoyan diet is that Nicoya have the lowest stomach cancer rate out of the country of Costa Rica. For some reason, Costa Ricans have one of the highest stomach cancer rates in the world. The conclusion by the researchers was that the high amount of fruit consumed in Nicoya helped prevent stomach cancer.

If you want the full story, you can read the book, but let me outline a few important points about diet that stood out for me.

All long-lived people live on a high-carb, low-fat, plant-based diet
All long-lived people eat a lot of vegetables, including greens.
Whenever they can get it, long-lived populations eat a lot of fruit and it seems to contribute to their longevity
When animal products are consumed, it’s occasionally and in small amounts only. But the 7th Day Adventist study also showed that vegans live longer than vegetarians or meat eaters, so the ideal is to avoid all animal products. If you do eat animal products, it shouldn’t be more than a few times a month (paleo eaters take note).
All long-lived people had periods in their life when a lot less food was available and they had to survive on a very sparse, limited diet. For example, the centenarians in the book in Okinawa describe a time during World War II when they lived on sweet potatoes for three meals a day. When discussing the centenarians in Italy: “When their family was young, in the 1950s, they were very poor. They ate what they produced on their land — mostly bread, cheese and vegetables (zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and most significantly, fava beans). Meat was at best a weekly affair, boiled on Sunday with pasta and roasted during the festivals.” This reinforces my concept of periodic fasting. Because we live in a society of such abundance, we have to force ourselves to go through periods of restrictions with periodic cleanses and fasting.
All long-lived people live in a sunny, warm climate — but not necessarily tropical. They got plenty of vitamin D from natural sunshine. The warmer climate probably also contributes to less stress and a more relaxed lifestyle.
All long-lived people consume beans in some form or another.
Nuts appear to be good for health. The 7th Day Adventists who ate a small serving of nuts several times a week had about half the risk of heart disease of those who didn’t.
The typical centenarian diet is very simple. If you analyze all these diets from long-lived people around the world, they essentially eat the same simple foods every day. It appears that you do not need a wide variety of foods in your diet to be healthy. Quality food over variety is more important. Also, rich foods like meat and cheese are reserved for special occasions, and eaten at the most a few times a month if at all.
They did not constantly change their diet or jump on the latest superfood fad. They ate the same seasonal things every day of the year.

Other Considerations

Of course, diet is only part of the answer. Other important points outlined in the Blue Zones include:

Exercise. The biggest insight in the book besides the diet points I have outlined is how much long-lived people exercise. It actually shocked me to realize that I’m not getting nearly as much exercise as I should.It seems that in the prime of their lives, these centenarians were probably getting something like 5 or 6 hours of moderate exercise per day (such as walking and working outdoors). And as they get older, they keep on walking and being active.Thus, the concept of exercising a few times a week to stay in shape seems seriously flawed. None of these centenarians “worked out”. They simply had an active lifestyle and walked a lot.An hour a day of walking or running, combined with weight training exercises and other outdoor activities you enjoy (golfing, swimming, etc.) should be the goal for anyone wanting to live a long and healthy life.
An Active Life — Another stunning realization is that all of the long-lived people in the book loved to work. In fact, some of them could be considered to have been “workaholics” in the prime of their life, and many of them never actually “retired”. They maintained an active lifestyle throughout their life.This blows out the concept that working hard is bad for you, or that staying home doing nothing is the best way to relax, or that the goal in life should be to save enough to retire at age 55 or 60 and then enjoy the good life.
A sense of purpose — All long-lived people had a strong sense of purpose. They had a reason to get up in the morning and do something. The Nicoyans called it “A plan de vida” which means a “life plan”. They were also engaged socially in their communities.
Family — This is a tough one for many of us, but it seems pretty obvious that in order to live a long life you can’t go it alone. All centenarians had big families that they supported and who supported them until the end.
Obvious things — Of course, the obvious factors are there as well. None of them smoked (no kidding) or ate massive quantities of food. However, from reading between the lines, I also understood that these centenarians progressively reduced the quantities of food they ate as they got older. One lady in Okinawa said ‘I don’t eat much anymore”.

Obviously, if you’re 35 you can’t follow the diet of a 102 year old lady. But as we get older, we must progressively reduce the amount of food we eat if we want to live a long life.

How Come There Are No Raw-Foodists on this list?

The big question everybody will ask is obviously this one: how come none of the long-lived people on the planet eat a raw-food diet?

You have to keep in mind that except for the 7th Day Adventists, none of these long-lived people actually consciously chose their diet and lifestyle. It was something that evolved naturally and that they did due to the environment of where they lived.

But the 7th Day Adventist study showed that when a group of people consciously decides to improve their diet as a whole, that they can significantly increase their lifespan and the quality of their lives.

The 7th Day Adventists did not have particularly good genes. They just were part of a religious group that had the particular feature of discouraging bad habits such as eating meat or drinking caffeine.

The 7th Day Adventists who ate a vegetarian diets lived longer than those who still ate meat, and those who were vegans lived even longer. Who knows what would have happened if some of them also ate a mostly-raw or all raw diet?

We actually don’t know what would happen if a population of people ate a raw food diet because it’s never been done and documented before.

However, based on the current studies done on long-lived people with the Blue Zones, we know that:

All long-lived people eat a high-carb, low fat diet
All long-lived people eat a plant-based diet
All long-lived people ate a lot of vegetables

So if you wanted to try a raw-food diet for longevity, it would have to at least meet those requirements.

Which means potentially the best diet in the world would be a diet of fruits and vegetables, with some nuts and seeds, where most of the calories come from fruit.

How many of you are ready to live 100 years or more?

Read the blue zones on Amazon Kindle or order the printed copy here

The All-Potato Diet: What Science Has to Say

White potatoes are a food that seems to get picked on a lot in many health circles. Some will say they simply lack the color and phytonutrients of other starchy vegetables, while others insist they are nothing but a giant wad of starch who’s sole purpose is to make you fat and sick.

Of course, there are parts of the world like the mountains of Peru and parts of Europe where people eat a diet based on potatoes and other starchy vegetables, and have done so in good health for hundreds of years.

Some people have taken this idea to the extreme and adopted potato-only diets for extended periods of time. Check out this short presentation from Dr. John McDougall and you’ll discover:

• Why some people can actually lose weight and get healthier doing a “crazy” potato-only diet

• How the absence of unhealthy foods is the critical component behind getting healthier on these mono diets

• Understand why many plant foods are nutritionally complete by themselves

• Why all large populations of healthy people on the planet get most of their calories from plants and starch

Now I don’t recommend you go out and adopt an all-potato diet. You might do fine for a while, but to be truly healthy we need to eat a variety of plant foods.

And as long as you’re not frying or drowning your potatoes in butter and cheese it is perfectly fine to include potatoes in your diet, be it white, red, yellow, purple, or sweet. Also read my article on this topic.

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Caloric Density Explained

Caloric density is something that I’ve discussed before, and one of the best tools you can use to either gain or lose weight at will. 

One of my favorite examples is to show the caloric density of certain gourmet raw food items and the caloric density of the foods they are trying to imitate. In most cases, the raw food has over twice the amount of calories and several times the amount of fat.

Of course there are other things to consider besides just fat and calories when it comes to food, but this does point out the significance of calorie density when it comes to our health and waistlines.

Check out this great clip of Jeff Novick explaining all about calorie density and you’ll learn:

• The difference between caloric density and caloric volume, and how this affects your health

• Why some foods are so easy to overeat on

• How the volume and total weight of the food you eat plays a role in feeling satisfied

• What causes a food to be more or less calorie dense

• How you can eat more and weight less

Learning about calorie density is an eye-opener for many people, especially when they understand why two plates of foods can look the same in volume but be dramatically different nutritionally.

That doesn’t mean you have to completely avoid calorie-dense foods. Nuts, seeds, avocados, and coconuts are all very concentrated foods, but they can still be included in smaller amounts in a healthy diet.

If you wish to lose weight:

Eat ONLY caloric dense foods.

Food

Caloric Density Per Pound

Fresh raw or cooked veggies
100


Fresh raw fruit
250-300


Cooked Starchy Vegetables, Intact Whole Grains
450-500


Legumes and Beans
550-600


Meat Products
900-1000


Dried Fruit
1200


Processed grains and Flours (even if made from whole grains)
1200-1500


Cheese
1800


Nuts and Seeds
2800


Cheese
1800


Oil
4000

 

Keep in mind that this is an average across a category. For example, we know that bananas contain more calories per weight than apples, but overall fruits have a similar caloric density.

Looking at this table, you’d be tempted to only eat vegetables, as they contain only 100 calories per pound. It’s important to note that nobody can live on just vegetables, and that you’d get so hungry on a diet of just vegetables that you’d eventually break down and eat something else! However, you want your diet to contain plenty of raw vegetables by weight.

The concept of caloric density is to look at the overall caloric density of your meals.

If the caloric density of your food is below 400 calories per pound, you will lose weight no matter what you do!

If you wish to gain weight: lower the caloric density of your food by eating fewer water-rich foods and more concentrated, caloric-dense foods.

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French People Don’t Get Fat

You may have heard of the French Paradox.

This is mysterious statistical fact that although French people eat a diet rich in saturated fat, they have relatively low levels of cardiovascular disease, compared to Americans.

Is it the wine that’s protecting them?

Are fatty foods actually bad for us?

Before I get into that, I must first say that I’m not French, even though it is my first language. I’m French Canadian. Big difference in culture and food. However, I have been half a dozen times to France and have spent enough time there, along with French expats in Montreal, to have a good idea.

Why French People Stay Thin

It is true, French people are much slimmer than Americans overall, even in 2014.

And yes, they eat some of the most decadent, fatty foods known to mankind, and they do that on a regular basis.

I’m talking about butter in everything: sauces, croissants, meat… everything contains a ridiculous amount of fat, that would make any nutritionist cringe.

They have hundreds of types of cheese, and they love to talk about them too.

Wine is popular, although much less so, in recent years.

80% of French people eat baguette with every meal.

With all that fattening food, you’d expect the French to be at least fatter than Americans, but the contrary is quite true. Obesity rates are at around 10% here, compared to 33% in the US.

France is the 128th fattest country in the world.

And also rates of heart rate disease (by number of deaths every year) is almost a third of what it is in the US.

Cancer rates are also a little lower, but not dramatically so.

So…. qu’est-ce qu’il se passe!? (What is going on!?)

Some have said that the reason French people stay relatively healthier is that they drink so much wine, and wine somehow protects them and “cleans their arteries”.

However, further research disproved this theory.

What is clear now is that French people stay slimmer and have less heart disease because they eat less in general, and they care more about what they eat.

One of the main factors is QUANTITY.

In French, the word for lunch literally means “breakfast” because it was the first meal of the day.

However, when people started eating a little something in the morning, they called that meal “little breakfast” (petit déjeuner).

The average breakfast in France is still pretty light. Maybe a croissant with some coffee, but many people skip it entirely.

Lunch is a big thing. They take their lunches seriously, often taking 2 hours or more to eat and chat.

Dinner is traditionally simple, and many smart French people eat almost nothing for dinner — maybe some fruit and yogurt. However, it’s becoming popular to have bigger dinners nowadays.

Another important fact: French people rarely eat in between meals. You will rarely see people snacking on the bus, train or metro.

My other theory on the French Paradox is the love of food that people have here.

People still like to shop like in the old days, buying their bread at the boulangerie (baker), their produce at the fruit shop or the market, their meat at the butcher, and so on.

Food is a big topic of conversation, and don’t be surprised if you get caught in a conversation with a French person where they’ll literally spend half an hour to describe their particular method for picking the best wild mushrooms, or making a particular recipe.

Because of this obsession for food, they also tend to care a lot more about food quality, by buying local products they can trust, and even harvesting and growing produce themselves as much as possible.

Also, the SOCIAL aspect of life is extremely important.

People tend to spend more time together. When they eat, it’s not the same rushed experience you would get at a fast-food restaurant.
Taking two hours to enjoy your lunch with your friends will certainly enhance your digestion, as opposed to angrily and quickly eating a burger alone.

In the end, it’s nothing magical that makes French people slimmer and a bit healthier, in spite of all that fattening food.
It’s a combination of:

Reasonable portions
Food quality

Social context

Are French People Truly Healthy?

In spite of everything I have said, we should not conclude that French people have found the secret to good life and good health by eating this way.

Cancer rates are still very high — almost as high as they are in North America.

And of course, French traditions are changing, as they are everywhere else.

Here are some final points of advice, translating everything to the raw food world:

* Spend more time to enjoy your meals in good company.

* Don’t eat between meals. (On a raw food diet, that may be a bit difficult to follow).

* Make your meals look beautiful, in order to enhance the appreciation of the whole experience, and even improve digestion.

* Care about what you eat. Discover new foods.

* Grow your own food if you can, or buy from local farmers that you know personally.

A must-watch video on fasting

Dr. Alan Goldhamer and Dr. John McDougall are two doctors and experts in plant-based nutrition that I have a lot of respect for. They’ve both been teaching the virtues of plant-based eating for optimal health and healing since the 70’s and 80’s.

Over the years, thousands of people have dramatically changed their health for the better under the simple principles these two doctors espouse.

Today, the discussion is on water-only fasting and how it affects your health.

Check out the video and you’ll learn:

How fasting, or complete and total rest and relaxation, can completely transform a person’s health
What care has to be taken when going into a fast
How learning to eat immediately after and following the fast is at least as important as the fast itself
The reason why some foods act just like drugs in some people
Why the key to good health isn’t anything revolutionary or even all that new

Fasting isn’t something that I would recommend to absolutely everyone. The proper considerations, monitoring, and professional aid all need to be in place. But the one thing more powerful than a fast is eating a good diet so you don’t have to fast in the first place!

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Note: This book is NOT for everybody. It’s only for people who want to find a healthy balanced between raw and cooked foods. It’s not about a 100% raw diet.

That’s why the sub-title is:

Combining the Best of Raw With Healthy Cooked Foods for the Ultimate Diet



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False Science Used by Raw Foodists to Promote Their Diet

Over the years, I’ve evolved from a very idealistic, somewhat naive view of raw food nutrition, based on the radical energy of my early twenties, to a more mature and complete understanding of the whole picture today.

The problem is that most people starting out on the raw food diet are still hanging on to misinformation, and receive bad advice from raw food authors that is not based in science, but rather in what I call “raw food lore.”

In the end, the raw food diet may very well provide great benefits, but not for the reasons raw foodists claim. Let’s review the most glaring pieces of misinformation that are common in raw food circles and that make this diet the laughingstock of the scientific community.

Remember, the fact that all these “facts” are completely false does not undermine the actual benefits of the diet. Rather, it can mislead raw foodists into making choices that are less than excellent. It also undermines the credibility of the movement, which is often seen as more of a circus of clowns than a true health movement.

#1: “Cooking destroys digestive enzymes.”

By far the biggest raw food myth is that of digestive enzymes. I remember when I first got into raw foods, I was told that cooking anything above 115 degrees Fahrenheit destroyed those living enzymes, and that’s why we get sick. I believed it, even though there wasn’t a shred of true science behind it.

The reality is that although plant enzymes exist, they are made for the survival of the plant itself. For example, enzymes in bananas transform the starch in a green banana into sugar as it ripens. Those enzymes are not necessary for humans, as we produce our own enzymes to digest food.

Even if you could somehow prove that food enzymes are beneficial when isolated, those same enzymes in foods are denatured and deactivated as soon as they reach our stomach. They can’t resist the high acidity of the human stomach.

It’s also false to believe that the human body has a limited supply of enzymes that “runs out” as it gets older. This ludicrous idea was propagated by the mysterious “doctor” Howell, who wrote a famous book on enzymes, which, by the way, has no real scientific references to support any of its claims.

Enzymes are also not alive. They are just proteins that catalyze chemical reactions which could not take place without their presence. Enzymes can only work under very specific conditions, such as the right temperature, pH, and the presence of other co-enzymes. Plant enzymes themselves will only work under a different set of parameters than our own digestive enzymes, which ultimately renders them useless after we eat them.

#2: “Fruits and vegetables are the human-specific diet”

The raw food diet is often promoted based on the idea that humans once lived on a pure raw food diet in perfect health, and as they discovered cooking, and eventually agriculture, their health began to deteriorate, culminating in the current state of bad health people experience today.

Every single discovery in the study of human evolution disproves this fantasy.

First of all, there is credible evidence that humans have been cooking for a very long time. A recent discovery2 showed that the extinct early hominid species homo erectus was cooking food, which would place cooking as beginning over 1.9 million years ago.

It’s true that homo erectus did not evolve into homo sapiens, but is an extinct cousin family. However, the research shows that cooking is much more ancient than we originally believed.

Researcher Professor Richard Wrangham argues in his book Catching Fire that cooking food enabled humans to evolve. Why?

Because it enabled us to get more calories and not spend 60-75% of our time looking for food and chewing it, like other apes.

Our digestive system even adapted to this change by becoming shorter, allowing for much quicker digestion than in other apes and removing the ability to extract much nutrition from insoluble fiber, much of which is already broken down by cooking.

Cooking gave humans an unmatched advantage by making available calorie denser storable foods that could not be consumed otherwise (like tubers), thus allowing for year-round food in a single place.

Modern raw foodists also eat a diet that is nowhere close to that of other apes. We do our own version of cooking and processing with blenders, dehydrators, and other modern appliances, making fibrous vegetables, and even fruit, easier to digest.

#3: “Humans are the only species who cook their food and the only species who suffer from degenerative diseases!”

I never fully believed the myth that wild animals don’t suffer from disease, but it is still a commonly seen argument for a raw food diet.

Wild animals do suffer from a wide range of diseases, but typically some of these could be avoided in the context of modern medicine. In other words, deaths by parasites and infectious disease are common.

Generally, it is true that wild animals don’t suffer from common degenerative diseases that affect humans, such as heart disease.

However, wild animals do die of various kinds of cancer, even if they don’t live in polluted areas.

The problem with this argument is that although it contains a grain of truth, it leads one to believe that a raw food diet is the only way to perfect health. Raw foodists do die from diseases, and in some cases those diseases have nothing to do with their diet (or could not be improved through dietary changes alone). Raw foodists have a lifespan that is quite average in general. This is not something that has been scientifically proven, but a personal observation of mine. If most raw foodists reached a very advanced age, I would have heard about it by now.

I would avoid the “wild animals” argument, because humans are so different from wild animals in so many ways that we can’t possibly compare ourselves to them anyway.

Wild animals don’t wear clothes… Should we try not to either?

#4: “Cooking food turns it into poison.”

Cooking food does affect it at the molecular level. In some cases, raw foods that contain real poisons are rendered edible by cooking. For example, raw kidney beans are poisonous, but by soaking and cooking them we destroy the enzyme inhibitors that can cause serious food poisoning if those beans are eaten raw.

On the other hand, cook some steak over the grill, and you’ll create a series of new, carcinogenic compounds that were not present in the steak before, and we saw a few pages ago that acrylamide, produced by high-heat cooking of carbohydrates, is carcinogenic.

Certain methods of cooking, such as steaming, appear rather innocuous. Of course, raw foodists will say that we don’t know yet what possible toxic compounds are created in any form of cooking, so steamed broccoli could be just as bad as barbecued meat, just for different reasons. This is, of course, pure conjecture, and most likely not true.

If cooked food were truly toxic, the human race would have disappeared a long time ago. This argument doesn’t do a lot of good for the credibility of the raw food movement.

#5: “Cooking destroys the natural live energy in food.”

Some raw foodists have used the “vital energy” argument to promote a raw food diet. The idea is that raw foods contain some kind of vital force that is destroyed by cooking.

To prove their point, they will show you Kirlian photographs (a special type of photography that captures a sort of “aura” around an object), showing the difference between raw and cooked foods. Raw foods appear bright with a beautiful aura, while the aura of the same foods when cooked appears dead, with depressing colors.

Kirlian photography uses a high-voltage source connected to a photographic plate. The object being photographed will be in contact with the plate. Because low current electricity is used, the technique is harmless.

According to Media College:

Small coronal discharges are created by the strong electric field at the edges of the object. The frequency of the electricity excites electrons in the object so they ionize the surrounding air.

Objects must be conductive for this technique to work. The object can be moist (e.g. a living thing), or conduct metal. A dry non-conducting object will not produce the effect. (…)

Many paranormal enthusiasts still claim that the aura captured by Kirlian photography is some sort of “life force.”

However this is easily debunked:

#1: Kirlian photographs can be taken of anything moist or conductive, including coins, paperclips, etc.

#2: Kirlian photographs taken in a vacuum (where no ionized gas is present) show no aura.

#3: Some people claim that a living object slowly loses its aura after it dies. This is more easily explained by the fact that it loses its moisture.

Because raw foods have a high moisture content, they appear more vibrant under Kirlian photography than their cooked counterparts.

#6: “Raw foods are easier to digest than cooked foods.”

It is true that some raw foods are much easier to digest than some cooked foods, but in most cases this is not true.

One example: starchy foods are easier to digest cooked than raw. This category includes potatoes, rice, and pretty much all grains. No population could ever survive eating these foods raw, as we only digest a tiny percentage of the raw starch, compared to most of the cooked starch. Raw starch probably won’t harm you, but you just can’t digest much of it.

Most of the world’s population lives on a starch-based diet, because it is simply a more reliable source of calories.

When raw foodists try to take some grains or beans and eat them raw, I always laugh. I’ve seen recipes that called for soaking rice to “sprout” it, and then turning it into a dish. But raw rice, even when soaked and sprouted, has very little nutritional value, because we don’t digest most of what’s in it. At least raw rice is not toxic, unlike many kinds of beans that can put you in the hospital if you eat them raw (such as kidney beans).

Does that mean I don’t support a raw food diet? Absolutely not! I just think we need to remove the false science from it in order to avoid making big mistakes and taking it to an extreme. 

I expand on this in my new book Raw Freedom. Read it at 50% off using coupon code JULYFREEDOM.

Eating Raw and Vegan While Traveling

Let’s say that you were to travel extensively, go on a round-the-world trip, or even just go for a vacation abroad.

Does it make sense to eat a raw food diet when you travel?

As you know, I promote a plant-based diet (raw foods is great), and I am a proponent of eating a lot of fruit.

I’ve also traveled extensively before, including an 8-month trip around the world covering over 20 countries, so I’m aware of the challenges and also advantages of eating raw on the road.

One of my main concerns when traveling is health, which means eating as well as possible and getting exercise (which is not always easy when traveling!).

Overall, I would say that it’s quite easy to eat a plant-based diet when traveling.

The best places to find fruits and vegetables around the world are usually grocery stores and farmer’s markets (which in many countries are just called “markets”).

The problem when traveling is not just to find food, but to have a way to eat it.

At home, I normally use a big Vita-Mix blender at least once a day to make green smoothies.

While traveling, you’ll need to minimize your luggage and bringing a 15-pound vita-mix is usually out of the question. Even a travel blender takes a lot of space and is hardly usable to make smoothies.

A good idea is to bring a flexible cutting board though, as well as one knife and a couple of tupperware containers.

While traveling, a good portion of our diet can consist of fruits that will be cut up and eaten that way.

In many countries like Thailand and even throughout Europe, fruit is easy to find and delicious.

Vegetables are something to watch out for in many foreign countries where the water quality is questionable. I’ve known more than one raw-foodist who got seriously ill with parasites after eating greens and vegetables in Asia.

Also, making a big salad in a hotel room is not that easy or fun to do. So

So I generally eat a lot less salads during my travels and instead eat more cooked vegetables.

Eating 100% Raw or Not?

Some people, for various reasons, make the 100% raw diet the most important focus in their lives. So if they went on a one-year trip around the world, they would do everything they can to eat 100% raw all the time.

For me, based on previous experiences, I’ve decided that eating raw is not my main concern when I travel.

There are several reasons for this:

1) When traveling and without access to fruit in bulk, and without a blender, it’s much harder to get enough calories from fruit.

2) I consider high-fat raw meals to be worse for health than low fat cooked vegan meals.

3) My goal is health and not just “raw foods”. I also want to have fun on a trip and not feel stressed by having to eat 100% raw all the time.

4) Because I don’t want to be eating a lot of raw vegetables in many countries for health reasons, supplementing the diet with some high-nutrient-density cooked vegetables is a good idea.

5) When eating 100% raw for a while, the body will violently react to any cooked foods eaten because it has not adapted to eating them in a while. Based on previous experiences, it’s not a good idea to become *that* sensitive on a trip, especially if it takes you to remote locations where finding enough fruit calories might be difficult.

My philosophy for eating while traveling is simple:

- I eat a lot of fruit because it’s easy to find, safe and usually less expensive than everything else.

- Avoid raw vegetables in many countries for health reasons.

- If I have access to a kitchen and will be in one location for a while, I buy ingredients to make simple and healthy plant-based meals.

- If I’m traveling for tourism, I enjoy some of the local cuisine and burn it off by walking over 18,000 steps a day!

- I don’t worry too much about making my diet perfect when traveling.

Stay safe, eat fruit, walk a lot, and enjoy your trip!

What do you think? If you traveled around the world, would you stick to a 100% raw diet? Post your comments below.

NOTE: You can save 55% on my course “How to Travel the World for Free” by using coupon code IRELAND for this week only. Click the link below to find out more and remember to use the coupon code on checkout for the discount! 

Debunking the Health Aspects of Olive Oil

I really like Dr. Klaper. He’s been truly a pioneer in the field of scientific, vegan nutrition.

I met him during my short fast at the TrueNorth Health Center, last December, where he works as a doctor on staff. I also did a consultation with him.

I always found him full of insights, inquisitive, and extremely generous.

Enjoy this video of Dr. Klaper at conference a couple years ago, where he discussed olive oil. You’ll discover:

- Why studies done on olive oil never proved it was healthy in itself

- What’s wrong with restaurant food

- The reasons why olive oil is NOT heart-healthy

- How olive oil makes your arteries stiff, and the studies that proved it.

Now, does it mean that you should NEVER consume olive oil?

I put olive oil is the category of “concentrated foods to be enjoyed rarely and in moderation.” If you’re really active, burn a lot of calories, and eat only whole plant foods, then having a dish containing a small quantity of olive oil, like one teaspoon or two, once in a while, probably won’t hurt you. But I agree that for most people, when trying to lose weight, the policy of avoiding most oils 100% of the time is best.

What do you think? 

If you’d like to get started the raw food diet, we have a special on the Raw Health Starter Kit. You save 35% by using coupon code JUNE2014. Click on the ad below and make sure to use coupon code JUNE2014 to get the discount! 

Can Your Cholesterol Be Too Low?

Some people, when they follow a low-fat vegan diet or a low-fat RAW vegan diet, come back with interesting blood test results, with cholesterol levels so low that their doctor is puzzled and even worried. They’ve just never seen any patient with levels that low.

I’m talking about levels way below 150 mg/dl. For example, as low as 120 mg/dl, and sometimes lower.

I’ve personally never had that “problem,” as I think I have a tendency for higher cholesterol, which I keep in check with my current regimen. (My cholesterol hovers between 155 and 165.)

Before we look at how low cholesterol levels can be, we have to look at the role of blood cholesterol in the development of heart disease, because I think this is where the “debate” lies. I put the word debate in quotes because it only appears to be a debate on the Internet and with diet gurus, but not with the vast majority of scientists.

Why the Contrarian View on Cholesterol is Wrong

When I started looking at this a few years ago, I had an open mind and wanted to find out the truth. Were the vegans right? Were the paleo folks right? What would be the right approach when it comes to preventing heart disease, and consuming animal products?

I was prompted to get down to the bottom of this issue when my dad died of a heart attack, and my own cholesterol readings did not put me in the healthiest range according to the vegan doctors.

The “contrarian” thing to say would be that cholesterol has nothing to do with heart disease, and in fact prevents heart disease (such a claim is made by the Weston Price Foundation).

But this contrarian view is WRONG. Dead wrong.

Heart disease can be caused by a number of factors, but elevated LDL levels is the most important factor of all. It’s almost impossible to develop atherosclerosis if one smokes, has hypertension, and doesn’t exercise… as long as LDL levels are under 80 mg/dl (some people say 70 mg/dl).

This has been shown countless time both in animal models (every mammal reacts the same way, including primates) and epidemiological studies.

Some people try to blame heart disease on other factors, like sugar, but it’s quite ludicrous because it’s only been associated with heart disease as a relationship factor in epidemiological studies, but not proven by other models.

(There is a model in which sugar can cause heart disease. It’s because elevated blood sugar levels damage LDL particles, making everything stickier, just like when sugar water is dropped on a table. However, this model alone is not sufficient to cause heart disease and animal studies have disproven it.)

What’s Unique About LDL Cholesterol and Heart Disease

There are other risks factors other than LDL; however, one cannot deny the primordial role of elevated LDL levels in the development of heart disease. This is because it can be a unique cause, as opposed to the other factors, which work in conjunction with each other.

This is the main point: there are many causes to heart disease, but only one main factor that alone is sufficient to cause it. This factor is elevated LDL levels. I have many sources for this:

“There are many risk factors to cardiovascular disease but elevated cholesterol levels alone are enough to drive the disease.”1

“Among the many genetic and environmental risk factors that have been identified by epidemiological studies, elevated levels of serum cholesterol are probably unique in being sufficient to drive the development of atherosclerosis in humans and experimental animals, even in the absence of other known risk factors. In humans, the majority of serum cholesterol is carried by LDL particles.”2

“In contrast to feeding cholesterol and/or saturated fat, it is not possible to produce atherosclerotic plaques in herbivores by raising the blood pressure chronically, by blowing cigarette smoke in their faces for their entire lifetimes, or by somehow raising the blood glucose levels without simultaneously feeding them an atherogenic diet.”3

William C. Roberts.

A Few Interesting Facts About Genetic Disorders

Some people are affected by familial hypercholesterolemia; a genetic disorder. They have very high cholesterol levels and have to be treated with medications. One in a million people is affected by familial hypercholesterolemia in both chromosomes, and those people can die of heart disease in their 20s, with no other risk factor.4

On the other hand, another genetic anomaly is hypocholesterolemia, which is just the opposite: abnormally low levels of blood cholesterol. However, these people tend to live longer than their peers because this defect protects them from heart disease.

“Expectations of life for males and females (with this condition) were 9 and 12 years longer (…) than otherwise expected.”5

How Much Cholesterol do we Need?

Humans need cholesterol to perform important functions. What we need is in the range of 25-60 mg/dl for LDL, and total cholesterol of 110 to 150 mg. 6

From the Same Source:

Other mammals without heart disease have LDL generally less than 80 mg/dl.
LDL level in newborn humans is around 30 mg/dl (total cholesterol around 72
born from mothers with total cholesterol of 297 mg/dl and LDL of 162).
In humans raised on a low-fat diet, LDL stays around 50 to 80 mg/dl.
LDL of 100 mg/dl and above is customary in rich societies with high intakes of animal foods.7

Official Recommendations (Mayo Clinic) for LDL Cholesterol:

Below 70 mg for people at very high risk of heart disease
Below 100 mg for people at risk of heart disease

How Much Cholesterol Do We Actually Need? (Continued)

Because some people have a genetic defect for very high LDL levels, some research has been done to determine how low their cholesterol can be lowered with medication. Because hypercholesterolemia is a serious disease with life-threatening consequences if left untreated, researchers have tried to answer this question. Here’s information from some research I found:

“Lowering plasma cholesterol levels does not decrease intracellular cholesterol levels (…) so much that even at plasma LDL cholesterol concentrations of 10 mg/DL, the LDL receptors in peripheral tissues would still be at 50% saturated and uptake would continue unabated.”  Daniel Steinberg, MD.8

(Notes from Fred: essentially, he’s saying that LDL levels can be pretty low and still perform its function in the body.)

Steinberg says: “LDL cholesterol levels can be 9

People claim that cholesterol is necessary for the body to perform essential functions. That is true, but the amount we need is very low. Other mammals have LDL levels well below 42 mg/DL and do just fine.

Infants and Cholesterol Levels

Infants have cholesterol levels of 50-90 mg. 10

What are Ideal Cholesterol Levels?

Optimal for LDL seem to be 50 to 70 mg/dl. Lower is generally better and physiologically normal.

- Loren Cordain, promoter of the paleo diet, says that optimal levels of LDL should be between 50 and 80 mg/dl. (I found an interesting study he co-authored that I will reference below.)

- Hunter-gatherers have low cholesterol, generally about 70 to 140 mgl/dl (35-70 mgl of LDL).

Here’s an interesting table from the study I’m about to reference:

Cholesterol in Native Populations and Wild Mammals (Total mg/dl) 11

Inuit: 140 mg

Hazda: 110 mg

Pygmy: 106 mg



Wild Primates



Baboon: 110 mg

Howler monkey: 105 mg



Wild Mammals:



Horse: 140 mg

Boar: 70 mg

African Elephant: 110 mg



Adult American: 208 mg (LDL 130 mg)

Quotes from The Study:

“The normal low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol range is 50 to 70 mg/dl for native hunter-gatherers, healthy human neonates, free-living primates, and other wild mammals (all of whom do not develop atherosclerosis). Randomized trial data suggest atherosclerosis progression and coronary heart disease events are minimized when LDL is lowered to 12

“Atherosclerosis development is a complex process influenced by a myriad of risk factors, although the LDL level is among the most important.” 13

“Atherosclerosis progression varies directly with low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. This regression line indicates that atherosclerosis does not progress when LDL is 67 mg/dl or below.” 14

“Cholesterol is an essential component of the cell membrane and an obligate precursor for bile acid, steroid hormone, and vitamin D synthesis. Consequently, it is likely that a physiologically ideal range of blood cholesterol exists above and below which adverse health consequences might be expected. Although individuals with serious chronic illnesses, such as cancer, often develop depressed LDL levels as a result of malnutrition, epidemiological studies show that people with naturally low LDL levels are associated with improved longevity.” 15

“People with heterozygous hypobetalipoproteinemia have total cholesterol levels as low as 80 mg/dl and LDL cholesterol levels as low as 30 mg/dl (30). This condition is associated with longevity (31), presumably due to the absence of atherosclerosis, but the lack of other adverse effects that might have accompanied a low LDL level suggests that such low levels of LDL are safe.” 16

Why do Hunter-Gatherers Have Low Cholesterol Levels?

It’s a bit of a paradox that societies with a relatively high intake of animal products have low cholesterol levels, while people following a paleo diet nowadays have a high cholesterol level.

It seems to be that parasites eat up excess cholesterol, and parasitic infections are common in those societies. 17

Even malaria (parasites) lowers cholesterol.

Also, a number of disease cause cholesterol to be lower. So, that’s why people have lower cholesterol at the end of their lives. Sometimes, this is why low cholesterol levels are associated with some diseases, like depression, when it’s possibly this reverse causation effect.

For the hunter-gatherer societies, other explanations include food scarcity and genetic adaptation.

Should we aim at LDL levels of 80 mg/dl or less? If one is at a high risk for heart disease, yes.

If one exercises and does all of the right things, then overall risk of heart disease is lower, because some of these things will prevent the disease (in part). But I still think looking at LDL levels or total cholesterol is a good idea. About 25% of heart attacks occur in people in the cholesterol range considered “normal.”

What About You: Do You Check Your Cholesterol? 

—-

1 SOURCE: (Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. 1987:7:612-619 – “Total cholesterol and high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in populations differing in fat and carbohydrate intake”)

2, 3 SOURCE: (Cell, Vol. 104, 503-516, February 23, 2001 Christopher K. Glass and Joseph L. Witztum Specialized Center of Research on Molecular Medicine and Atherosclerosis Other source: book called “Nutritional and Metabolic Bases of Cardiovascular Disease”)

4 Source: (Familial hyperalaphalipoproteinamia J Lab Clin Med, 1976, Dc,88(6)-941-57)



5 Source: (The Johns Hopkins Textbook of Dyslipidemia) – Peter O. Kwiterovich, Jr., MD)

6, 7 Source: (“A Receptor-Mediated Pathway for Cholesterol Homeostasis” – Nobel Lecture, 9 December, 1985 by Michael S. Brown and Joseph L Goldstein)

8, 9 SOURCE: (“Evidence Mandating Earlier and More Aggressive Treatment of Hypercholesterolemia” – Circulation, 2008; 118:672-677)

10 SOURCE: (Serum Cholesterol Concentration in New-Born African and European Infants and Their Mothers) – American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vl 4, No. 8, 1962)

11-16 SOURCE: (James H O’Keefe, MD*; Loren Cordain, PhD†; William H Harris, PhD*; Richard M Moe, MD, PhD*; Robert Vogel, MD‡ J Am Coll Cardiol. 2004;43(11):2142-2146. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2004.03.046 http://content.onlinejacc.org/article...)

17 SOURCE: (“Role of cholesterol in parasitic infections” – Lipids in health and disease 2005,4:10)

Note: thanks to PlantPositive for inspiring this article.