Why You Should Lay Off Fruits & Vegetables and Eat Fat Instead
Most books on nutrition assume everybody is the same. But it ain’t so. We’re all different. Yet we are told to avoid fat and eat fruits and vegetables as if there’s no difference between us.
Fat gets the blame for everything these days. Cancer. Heart Disease. Obesity. Rising fuel prices. Whatever. We should cut the fat and switch to carbohydrates like whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
Fat Is Good
Well let me tell you about a medically approved diet for some children. 90% of the calories on this diet come from fat. The kids are normal weight and their cholesterol levels only a tad higher than usual. These children have epilepsy and this diet controls their seizures.
The children might eat a meal consisting of chicken and carrots with butter and double cream. Not exactly your standard fare, but for the children and their families, it’s what they require.
I can see you’re not convinced. You think that case is special. For everyone else we can state that fruits and vegetables are beneficial and that fats should be avoided.
Not really! Some nutritionists believe our most common nutritional deficiency is …. fat.
Saturated fat from dairy foods and meat are not to be avoided like the plague. They may not be the healthiest fats to eat, but humans have evolved to eat it. The problem fats are the ones that come from eating the products of the fast food industry. This leads us to eat far too much trans fats and omega 6 fats and far too little of the omega 3 fats derived from oily fish.
Vegetable Can Be Bad
A Glasgow university professor warns us that the fastest growing cancer in the UK could be caused by eating vegetables. Professor McColl and his colleagues at Glasgow University believe that nitrate fertilisers may be responsible for seeing the incidence of throat cancer treble over the last 2 decades.
Buying organic is not the answer. They are also loaded with nitrate.
I could mention all the naturally occurring toxins, carcinogens and mutagens found in fruits and vegetables. But I won’t. At least not for this article.
I could also mention those people that are especially sensitive to carbs. They need to limit how much fruit and vegetables they eat because they effect their blood sugar levels. But we’ll leave that alone as well.
I might even mention the many people who have a toxic reaction to certain foods. Even ‘healthy’ foods, like grapefruit, oranges, tomatoes, onions.
And there are those that are allergic to aspirin. The chemical salicylate which is found in aspirin is also found in high amounts in fruits and vegetables.
Of course I’m not really telling you to eat fat and avoid fruits and vegetables. The point I am making is that you are an individual, with your own personal requirements. You are different from every other person on earth. So nobody can tell you what to eat. You must get to know your own body and understand what it is trying to tell you.
Listen to your own body, not to the nutrition gurus.
About the Author:
Michael Sellar is a UK health writer and the editor of Enzyme Digest, a newsletter for health professionals. His website london complementary health contains a more detailed version of this piece as well as lots of other pieces on nutrition and alternative medicine.