​FOOD AND NUTRITION: IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE COMPLICATED

by Dr. Andrew Nish, Medical Director, John Stoddard Cancer Center, Des Moines, Iowa

There is a plethora of advertisements trying to sell the latest in nutrition; low fat, high fat, no lectins, this powder, and that shake. No wonder we are all confused but it does not have to be complicated. Let’s keep it simple - eat real food, mostly plants, as close to its original form as possible. Real food, that which mother nature has provided for us, is high in fiber (feeding the 40 trillion microbes in your gut) and low in sugar. Processed food is just the opposite, low in fiber (therefore no food for the microbes in your gut) and high in sugar.

Food: A substance that is used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy.
Poison: A substance that is capable of causing illness or death of a living organism.

Real food supports growth and repair and supplies energy while processed food is a slow acting poison.

For decades we have been brainwashed (mainly by the food industry and government) that a calorie is a calorie. All calories are interchangeable. The implication is that a calorie from any food source is just a calorie, eat too many, expend too few and you become obese. The problem with this model is that it doesn’t take into account that we are complex biologic beings and that what we put into our mouths directly effects hormonal and metabolic responses telling us to either burn or store energy. Thus, the calorie in, calorie out model is an inherently flawed model. We have been told eat less and exercise more and all will be well but as we have witnessed over the past 50 years nothing can be further from the truth. All food is inherently good in its natural state, what has been done to the food is the problem (processing). It is not what you eat that is important but specifically what your body does with what you eat.

This is where insulin comes in. Insulin is a hormone that is produced by your pancreas and has 3 main functions: it lowers your blood sugar; it signals your body to store energy in the form of fat and it stimulates cell growth. Insulin is vital to life but too much promotes energy storage (fat) and cell growth (cancer). In western society it has been estimated that up to 88% of people have too much insulin and a main driver is the food we eat.

As Dr. Robert Lustig says: “the key to reducing your insulin levels is to protect the liver and feed the gut.” This means eating real food, high fiber, low sugar and eliminating processed food, low fiber, and high sugar. At this point sugar deserves a special mention. The consumption of sugar, specifically the fructose molecule in sugar drives insulin resistance (reduced response of cells to insulin) and therefore elevated levels of insulin. We are swimming in sugar. Up to 80% of all processed foods in the grocery store have added sugar. That means that most foods that are purchased have added sugar, the driver of insulin resistance.

The World Health Organization recommends that we consume not more than 6 teaspoons of added sugar per day (that is 24 grams). Unfortunately, most Americans consume 20-25 teaspoons per day. Natural sugar in fruits and vegetables do not count toward that total as long as they are eaten as their whole and not consumed as juice.

​Nutrition does not need to be complicated. Eliminate processed foods and sugary beverages and make a wide variety of plants the center piece of your meals including a rainbow of vegetables and fruits, nuts, seeds, spices, herbs, whole grains (minimize any processing) and legumes as well as healthy oils (olive) and small amounts of animal protein. Next time you make a food choice think about whether that choice is feeding your gut microbiome (those 40 trillion organisms that support your health) and protecting your liver from the ravages of sugar and processed food– high fiber and low sugar. 

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