Not even higher education is immune to the corrupting influence of Big Food. One of the most notorious cases of a food producer advancing its dubious claims by leveraging the prestige of an elite institution involved a man called Frederick Stare. General Foods, the producer of Kool-Aid and Jell-O, had even paid for a new building for his department.

In , the New England Journal of Medicine published an article that concluded that replacing fat with carbohydrates — that is, sugar — was the best diet for a healthy heart.

This influential paper was the beginning of a lie which many still believe today, and it shows how Big Food shapes public perception to suit its own needs. Around 5 percent of the food sold in the United States these days is organic, and that number is constantly rising.

Just how much healthier is it really? Well, a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition found that, compared to conventional tomatoes, organic tomatoes contain more vitamin C, antioxidants, and flavonoids — plant chemicals that stimulate detoxification enzymes in the liver.

Organic meat and dairy have meanwhile been shown to contain around 50 percent more omega-3 fatty acids than non-organic products. Why is that? Well, non-organic foodstuffs contain traces of potentially toxic pesticides linked to ADHD, lower IQ in children exposed in utero, as well as some forms of cancer, Type 2 diabetes, and a host of allergies.

Non-organic farms, by contrast, regularly use or more synthetic pesticides! So buying organic is a no-brainer, right?

Chemical giant Monsanto, for example, makes billions of dollars selling their products to non-organic farms. One of their bestsellers is a weed killer called Roundup, which is used to grow staple crops like corn and soy. The principal ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate — a chemical originally used to dissolve mineral buildup in pipes; scientists have linked it to an increased risk of celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and cancer.

To prevent this kind of information from reaching consumers, trade associations create front groups made up of farmers, nutritionists, and scientists to wage a propaganda campaign against unflattering evidence. These groups often enjoy huge influence.

Take CropLife, a group that represents Monsanto. It managed to convince the Environmental Protection Agency to classify glyphosate as safe even though the World Health Organization classifies it as a probable carcinogen!

All that unpronounceable jargon hides the fact that lots of products are packed with downright nasty ingredients. Worse, the organization tasked with preventing this — the United States Food and Drug Administration, or FDA for short — is pretty much toothless.

According to the National Resources Defense Council, there are 1, unexamined chemicals in the food Americans eat every day. As you might imagine, this regulatory situation allows companies to hide all sorts of unpleasant truths.

Its origin? These days, however, what goes into the food we eat has less to do with public health concerns and more to do with marketing.

This is because many diet foods contain low- or zero-calorie sweeteners such as aspartame, which has been shown to increase the risk of metabolic syndrome — one of the causes of diabetes and strokes — by 34 percent.

Other low- or zero-calorie foods are packed with artificial refined sugars like corn syrup, which contain cellulose, an indigestible substance linked with digestive issues and weight gain. Eating these foods traps dieters in a vicious circle. In the end, they both fail to lose weight and damage their health.

Breakfast cereals, especially those aimed at children such as Lucky Charms or Cocoa Puffs, make all sorts of outlandish claims about their contributions to daily recommended doses of vitamins and minerals. A product like Vitaminwater might sound healthy, but those vitamins come with 32 grams of sugar.

Ironically, naturally-occurring vitamins can be absorbed twice as quickly as synthetic ones, meaning that all that sugar doesn't even serve its advertised purpose!

So there you have it — an insight into the machinations of Big Food and its quest to convince you to buy harmful products. Foot Detox. The Good Mood Guide:. Detoxing Through Infrared Therapy. top of page. It is low in calories, and can be enjoyed in a wide array of egg recipes.

These healthier options, such as grass-fed beef , dark chocolate and eggs, provide nutrients that your body will enjoy. I think a good ratio of HDL to LDL particles is Multiply your HDL number by 2. Frequent snacking or small meals throughout the day has grown in popularity with some people.

The idea is that eating stimulates the metabolism, as you get a metabolic boost while digesting foods, that can result in weight and fat loss. But, the truth is that it is the total amount of food you eat in a day that impacts your metabolism, and intermittent fasting may be better for most individuals.

Truth: Eating constantly does not help your metabolism and may interfere with burning fat. Intermittent fasting IMF allows the body to burn fat easier and more efficiently because insulin levels in the body are low.

So, by eating meals throughout the day, you are actually postponing the fat burning! Intermittent fasting can be accomplished by eating all meals within one 8-hour period each day, and fasting the remaining 16 hours, or through an alternate-day fast.

For most people, alternate-day fasting is difficult, but research shows that body weight and fat loss increase in this model. An intermittent fast is easy to incorporate into your routine.

For most people, skipping breakfast, and starting the eating portion of the day around noon, and ending around p. is best. While it is tempting to believe that hunger will rule the 16 hours of fasting, actually, the reverse is often true. People actually feel fuller with fewer, higher protein meals than with frequent meals.

This study also found that in general, higher protein intake promotes satiety, while challenging the concept that increasing the meals per day is more satisfying. One word of caution: Intermittent fasting for women is a slightly different story. Sodium, or salt, has been quite the scapegoat for heart disease for a long time.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend Americans consume less than 2, milligrams of sodium each day preferably no more than 1, , which is equal to 5. Many people on a standard American diet get a ton of sodium from packaged and processed foods in addition to table salt.

Unfortunately, these types of foods including table salt have many other concerning health risks associated with them. I stopped eating table salt years ago whenever I could because of some of the unsavory ingredients it often is found to contain, such as iodine, aluminum derivatives, MSG and processed sugar.

Plus, sodium can be good for you — and your heart needs more of it than you may realize. Lowering your salt intake can marginally lower blood pressure. But taking in too little sodium has been linked to:. On the other hand, excessive sodium intake is linked to autoimmune disease, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, kidney stones and kidney disease.

Instead of iodized table salt, I always recommend going for healthy sodium options like Celtic sea salt or pink Himalayan salt. Like I said, grams per day seems to work best according to available research. The top healthy sources of sodium include:. Refined sugars, on the other hand…. They are high in calories and affect the production of insulin.

A diet high in refined sugars is linked to type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and pancreatic cancer. Just because refined sugars are bad, it does not mean we should rush out and start using artificial sweeteners , either!

More on that below. If you have been lured into believing that all natural sugars are bad , and you are consuming artificial sweeteners, please stop immediately! Coconut sugar, raw stevia, dates, monk fruit, blackstrap molasses and honey are just a few of the naturally sweet, yet nutritious, sweeteners available.

One of my top natural sweeteners is raw honey. It is packed with therapeutic benefits including boosting immune system function, supporting restful sleep and may help you lose or manage your weight.

Or try manuka honey for even more healing benefits! Blackstrap molasses offers a rich warm sweetness while being high in iron, potassium, calcium, copper and manganese. Instead of the refined white sugar that has zero nutritional value, try one of my recommended natural sweeteners. A diet of processed foods, refined sugar, whole grains, and other foods that are not nutrient dense cannot be counteracted with supplements, no matter how many you take.

Healthy foods contain tens of thousands of phytochemicals, fibers, proteins and fats that simply cannot be replicated into pill or supplement form.

Eating a well-balanced diet rich with fruits, vegetables, healthy fats and high-quality proteins gives you the majority of the nutrients you need. High-quality supplements are good as a supplement, and are not designed to replace the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients you get from your diet.

In essence, supplements can help to close a nutritional gap, but should never be used in place of a well-balanced and healthy diet.

Truth: The majority of your nutrition should come from nutrient-dense, whole foods. Certain vitamin or mineral deficiencies can be supplemented effectively, namely vitamin B, calcium, probiotics and magnesium.

There are also a number of supplements that have been found, in high doses, to impact the outcome or development of certain diseases. When you take any supplements, make sure they are food-based and are formulated for absorbability. You body was made to digest food, and it needs your nutrients in a form that it can recognize and digest!

Focus on foods that are rich in B12, vitamin C, folate, potassium, magnesium, vitamin D and vitamin K which builds bones better than calcium.

Nutrients directly from food are easier to digest, and have greater bioavailability than those in the majority of supplements on the market today. Use supplements if you believe you have a deficiency, but be sure to partner it with foods that support reversing the deficiency as well.

Maintaining a healthy weight is one important way to reduce your risk of disease and slow the internal aging process. However, many of us have heard before that following a calories-in, calories-out diet CICO is the only way to successfully lose or manage weight.

Did you know that most people who follow a diet and exercise program based on CICO have weight that fluctuates back up, regardless of how well they stick to their diet?

On the other hand, the models of a modified Paleo diet, Mediterranean diet or the ketogenic diet all help support a healthy weight and also reduce your risk of disease and early death. The harm here lies in your long-term health.

Those nuts or extra-virgin olive oil can actually cause a major drop in your risk of heart disease. and has no real nutritional value. A detailed editorial published in Open Heart in covers the science behind weight management for disease prevention specifically for heart disease, but also on additional matters such as diabetes.

They review the potential for a low-carbohydrate, high fat diet keto for reversing symptoms of diabetes, as well as the introduction of healthy fats to reduce heart disease risk and the instance of metabolic syndrome. One interesting fact they uncovered was that a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet does not change markers of heart disease triglycerides, cholesterol or HDL cholesterol to a different degree than a low-fat diet — but that high-fat diets do reduce the risk of death from heart disease.

Shifting focus away from calories and emphasizing a dietary pattern that focuses on food quality rather than quantity will help to rapidly reduce obesity, related diseases and cardiovascular risk.

Your daily calorie intake can matter to some degree. Far too low, and you run the risk of starving your body and shutting down important processes you need to live. Excessively consume calories and you will probably gain weight. But the best way to lose weight best, because it also reduces disease and death risks!

is to reduce your carbohydrate intake particularly refined carbohydrates while introducing healthy fats into your routine. This means ridding your pantry of processed foods and eating whole foods as often as possible.

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Atkins's following was large, and there were so many debates regarding this topic, that Dr. Atkins had to defend his fatty diet in Congressional hearings.

His low-carbohydrate message seemed destined to be relegated to the realm of unscientific fantasy and borderline quackery. However, the trend is clearly reversing.

More researchers are leaning towards the Atkins camp, having seen three decades of reduced cholesterol consumption but exploding obesity. Could Banting and Dr. Atkins have been right all along?

Banting and Dr. Atkins are joined by a growing number of respected scientists who had written decades worth of best-selling diet books, including "The Zone," and "Sugar Busters" telling us that fats are alright. They do not make us fat.

The main culprits are actually the refined carbohydrates, such as pasta, rice, and bread, items that are at the base of the famous Food Guide Pyramid and items that actually provide the main bulk of the calories that our body requires.

However, Dr. Atkins says that by eating fewer carbohydrates, we will definitely lose weight and live longer. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health agrees.

The exclusive three decades focused on the adverse effects of fats, may have contributed to the obesity epidemic because people were told to switch to carbohydrates.

For many people, the low-fat diets are counterproductive for two reasons. Many people switch to low-fat diets using the wrong substitute. They take in excessive carbohydrates such as pasta and potato to replace fats. As a result, this creates a chronic high blood sugar level, leading to obesity, insulin resistance and ultimately diabetes.

Such low-fat diets and resulting high carbohydrate diets have the paradoxical effect of making people feel more hungry and gaining weight as people are turned into a carbohydrate addict. The facts are clear. Since the government's promotion of the low-fat dogma in the early s, the rates of obesity have been rising steeply.

While Americans have actually reduced their fat intake over the past two decades, the incidence of heart disease still remained high. Obviously, something else is happening. The percentage of obese Americans have remained constant through the 's and 's at 13 percent to 14 percent.

During the s, it suddenly went up by 8 points. Towards the end of that decade, nearly one in four Americans are obese!

This steep rise, which is consistent across all segments of the American society and which continues unabated through the 's, is the singular feature of the epidemic. Any theory that tries to explain obesity in America has to account for that. Meanwhile, the number of obese children tripled.

For the first time in history, doctors began diagnosing in adolescents. Type 2 diabetes is related to obesity and used to be called adult-onset diabetes. Today, scientists may have to change the name to adolescent-onset diabetes.

Researcher Ancel Keys was the one who introduced the "low-fat-is-good-health" dogma in the 's along with his theory that dietary fat and cholesterol raises blood cholesterol levels and causes heart disease. However, there was no scientific evidence to support his theory for the next two decades.

The most well-known advocate of the low-fat diet is Nathan Pritikin. With his longevity center located in Santa Monica, California, thousands flocked to his program in the s and 80s.

His program consisted of low fat, fresh raw foods, whole grain, and strenuous exercise program. Followers of his program lost weight and had their cholesterol level normalized. Unfortunately, it was found that few could stay on such a diet consistently.

The drop off rate is high. The demanding lifestyle change is fitting only to those who have the mental discipline to follow through the long term. Is the hypothesis of a low-fat diet being good for us a fact or fiction? Unfortunately, the amount of evidence, supporting the contention that a diet low in cholesterol and saturated fat actually reduces death from heart disease or increases our longevity, is far from solid.

Research has shown that eating food with cholesterol only marginally affects the blood cholesterol level. Butter consumption dropped from 18 pounds per person per year to 4. Clearly, dietary cholesterol alone cannot be solely responsible. The famous Framingham Heart Study is often cited as "solid proof" that a low-fat diet works.

It is a longitudinal study started in and involved 6, people from the town of Framingham, Massachusetts. It is found, after 40 years of study, that the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, and the more cholesterol one ate, the more physically active one became.

The study showed that those who weighed more and had abnormally high blood cholesterol levels were more at risk for heart disease. What is most interesting, is that researchers found that weight gain and cholesterol levels had an inverse relationship with fat and cholesterol intake in the diet.

On the contrary, the higher the carbohydrate intake, the higher the apparent risk of obesity. Furthermore, the few studies that were able to indicate a correlation between fat reduction and a decrease in coronary heart disease also document a concurrent increase in death from cancer, brain hemorrhage, and suicide.

This is clearly supported by a study conducted by researchers at the University of Hawaii. In this study, researchers followed Japanese-American men, between the ages of 71 and 93, to study the link between cholesterol levels and mortality rates.

The researchers found that cholesterol levels tended to decline with age from an average of 5. They also observed that study participants who had maintained low cholesterol levels for 20 years or more had the highest mortality of all.

Subjects had their cholesterol levels and numerous other parameters measured in By December there had been deaths in the group. The researchers found that men with an average total cholesterol level of 5.

The correlation between mortality and cholesterol levels was not changed after adjusting for other variables that could affect mortality rates. The reality is that studies have shown that a diet high in cholesterol will not lead to high blood cholesterol if the subject is healthy.

Clearly, dietary cholesterol is not the main culprit. Now, lets go back to history. While the fat debate continues, the government settled this on its own accord by issuing, in January , the "Dietary Goals for the United States". Everyone was advised to reduce their fat intake to abate an epidemic of "killer diseases" that was supposedly sweeping the country then.

This campaign peaked in late when the National Institutes of Health N. officially announced that all Americans over the age of 2 to consume fewer fats. During this time, fats had become this "greasy killer" worse than the plague.

During this period, the N. had used several hundred million dollars trying to find a connection between taking fats and heart disease. Sad to say, their efforts failed.

Five major studies revealed no such link. These studies had failed to demonstrate at great expense that eating less fat had any significant health benefits. However, if a cholesterol-lowering drug could prevent heart attacks, then a low-fat, cholesterol-lowering diet could theoretically perform the same trick.

This logic appears to make sense, but such unsubstantiated correlation is simply not well supported by scientific evidence. Those who are critical of this hypothesis are effectively ignored. In the past 20 years, cholesterol reducing drugs have become top sellers in the pharmacological industry, generating billions of profit year after year.

Recently, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute a part of National Institute of Health has decided that "normal" cholesterol should be lowered in order to "save" more lives. High cholesterol level is one of many symptoms of increased cardiovascular risk, much like a running nose is a symptom of an underlying viral infection.

Forcing cholesterol down with drugs without addressing the underlying cause is akin to prescribing an anti-histamine for a runny nose and declaring that the flu has been cured when the nose stops running.

This kind of logic cannot be accepted as "evidence-based" medicine. We now know that while cholesterol-lowering drugs may lead to fewer heart attacks, the mechanism of action may not be related to a lowered blood cholesterol level only.

The popular statin class of cholesterol-lowering drugs has, in fact, been shown to reduce inflammatory response in the endothelium the inner lining of the blood vessel. It may well be that reduction accounts for the cardiac benefit effect.

The suppression of cholesterol manufacturing in the liver leading to cholesterol lowering levels may be a less important and a secondary benefit. Nonetheless, once the N. joined the bandwagon that low fat is good for you, the food industry began to produce reduced-fat food products to meet the new recommendations.

Fat was mainly replaced by another form of sugar, often high-fructose corn syrup and polyunsaturated fats. Unfortunately, such polyunsaturated fats, processed and treated under heat, become hydrogenated.

This result is the popularization of a new form of fat called trans fat. Few know how to read and detect this disclosure printed on the nutritional label on boxes of cookies. Trans-fat is known to be one of the strongest carcinogens.

Eating too much trans-fat, as in cookies and French fries has been linked to the ever-rising incidence of cancer. While the low-fat diet was being promoted in the past 20 years as the longevity diet, astute investigators continued to question the basic lipid hypothesis: Is there a direct relationship between the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet and the incidence of heart disease originally proposed by Ancel Keys?

Clearly, the low-fat, low cholesterol hypothesis is not as good as it sounds. What then, causes the ever-rising rate of heart disease? Many cutting edge researchers are pointing their fingers at carbohydrates.

Let us take a closer look. Some students of historical endocrinology and metabolism have noted that man was not born to eat a diet high in starches or sugars. Grain products and concentrated sugars were absent from human nutrition until the invention of agriculture, which was only 10, years ago.

Without the advent of and popularization of grains such as wheat and rice as part of a staple diet, humans would not have survived multiple famines throughout history and there would not have been a "population explosion".

This fact has often been discussed in the anthropology textbooks but is absent from the obesity literature, with the exception of the low-carbohydrate-diet books. Until the late 70's, most people still believed that fats and proteins protected against overeating by making you sated, and carbohydrates made you fat.

Up to the 70's, we can still find many articles describing the high rates of obesity in Africa and the Caribbean whose diets are exclusively carbohydrates.

All carbohydrates are broken down into sugar inside the body. It is the rate and the amount of this dissolution that determines the level of sugar in the blood. Complex carbohydrates such as whole vegetables, whole grain products, legumes, and fruits break down slowly , thus causing a gradual rise in blood sugar when first taken in and a gradual fall in blood sugar when absorbed.

Generally speaking, most complex carbohydrates are considered good for health. On the other hand, simple carbohydrates such as cakes , sweets, candies, soft drinks and cookies break down quickly once inside the body.

This causes rapid spikes in the blood sugar levels and subsequent valleys when the sugar is quickly absorbed. This creates a roller-coaster effect damaging to many cellular functions.

Excessive consumption of simple carbohydrates is detrimental to our health. This simple and easily comprehensive classification of carbohydrates is incomplete. While most simple carbohydrates are harmful because of their rapid breakdown rate into glucose after ingestion, some complex carbohydrates such as potatoes, rice, and wheat products are high in starch long chain glucose.

Such starchy foods are not healthy because of their relatively fast rate of breakdown into simple carbohydrates and thus raising the blood sugar levels quickly.

These starchy foods are the main culprits of a high carbohydrate diet heavily promoted during the past 20 years. Thirty years ago, our understanding of carbohydrate metabolism was still in its infancy stage; its link to fat was still being debated.

Today, we know that carbohydrate turns into sugar once inside our bodies, and excessive sugar is turned into glycogen and ultimately fat. As mentioned earlier, the amount and rate of carbohydrate clearance are highly dependent on the amount of insulin the pancreas secretes. Within a few minutes after the start of a meal, insulin is released.

Insulin's function is to move the glucose from the bloodstream to the cell. When the blood glucose drops, the level of insulin also drops, signifying that it has completed its function.

This drop in insulin also results in the release of a brain chemical called serotonin. Serotonin produces a feeling of satisfaction and we stop eating. This is the brain's signal to us that we are full.

Several hours after a meal, the insulin-to-glucose changes. The body has been using some of the glucose that remains in the blood for energy. This change in ratio results from a drop in glucose but an even more dramatic drop in insulin.

The low insulin level signals the body to eat again. This signal is recognized as the sensation of hunger.

In fact, some called insulin the hunger hormone. In some people, this process went awry. Specifically, there is an over-release of insulin more than what is needed immediate after a meal high in carbohydrate.

This leads to a high insulin level in the blood, even after glucose is cleared from the bloodstream into the cell. If another meal high in carbohydrates is consumed or a snack within the next 2 hours, insulin is released again.

At the meantime, the higher than normal insulin level from the first meal is still high and has yet to be normalized. Combining the insulin levels of the high carbohydrate meal and a high carbohydrate snack like a cake, donut, and soda back to back within a couple of hours, the blood insulin level remains high and fails to drop.

With a high insulin level, the brain is tricked into thinking that the body is still eating and is not yet full. As a result, the brain levels of serotonin fail to rise, and there is no signal to stop eating.

This continuous vicious cycle of over-eating forms the physical basis of what is called a carbohydrate addict, according to researchers Dr. Rachael and Richard Heller, professors of New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

According to Dr. Richard and Rachael Heller's book, Carbohydrate Addict : "Carbohydrate addicts recognize the desire to eat isn't logical because they know they're not really hungry in the sense of requiring nourishment.

But the drive to eat is hard to deny. You may find yourself eating out of habit, almost unconsciously satisfying a compulsion. You may snack, realizing to our surprise that you are eating out of boredom or to relieve stress. Many carbohydrate addicts report that their cravings grow stronger each time they eat carbohydrate".

If you are overweight and have many of the symptoms below , consider yourself a carbohydrate addict. In addition to the above, a high sugar intake in a simple carbohydrate and starchy diet leads also to an increased risk of heart disease.

Excessive simple sugars lead to a high insulin state which, in turn, is the primary trigger of high triglycerides, a type of blood fat, and very low-density lipoproteins VLDL. We will look at the mechanism of action in more detail later.

Suffice to say that both triglyceride and VLDL are independent risk factors for atherosclerosis. In addition, sugar lowers good HDL cholesterol, raises bad LDL cholesterol, resulting in a rise in total cholesterol.

It is estimated that a high sugar intake may account for as many as , premature deaths from heart disease in the US each year.

Many studies have been conducted to support this. In one research trial, 18 male subjects received normal food followed by a rigorously specified diet in which proteins and carbohydrate requirements were met by amino acids, essential fats, and glucose.

After two weeks on the restricted glucose diet, it fell to Another two weeks later, the level was at However, when the subject's diet was changed, by replacing 25 percent of the glucose with sucrose while all other dietary constituents kept constant , the average cholesterol level rose from to within one week and to within two weeks.

Subsequently, the researchers then replaced glucose with sucrose again. With this change, the cholesterol concentration fell back to within one week and the decline continued.

This research concluded a relationship between the consumption of sucrose table sugar and an increase in cholesterol. A high carbohydrate diet that has been consumed over a long time can lead to a state of insulin resistance also called Syndrome X that now afflicts over 60 million Americans.

A high blood insulin level is characteristic of this state. The high insulin turns on the liver to make more VLDL. VLDL is a main carrier of triglyceride. VLDL is further metabolized into LDL. The result - high triglyceride, high LDL cholesterol, and low HDL cholesterol which will be explained later.

Circulating fats such as LDL cholesterol, when oxidized, can cause massive damages to the endothelial wall of blood vessels, leading to an inflammatory response that cumulates with the formation of fatty streaks and ultimately plaques in a process we call atherosclerosis. Clearly, the destructive role of carbohydrates has not been fully elucidated before the public is asked to indulge in this 20 year exercise of slow suicide.

It is now clear that excessive refined carbohydrates can be equally, if not more, destructive than excessive saturated fat. Perhaps it should be made more clear - excessive intake of harmful carbohydrates such as cakes, sweets, potatoes, white bread, and pasta are the main culprits behind the rise in obesity and cardiovascular disease despite a drop in dietary saturated fats over the past 20 years.

As our knowledge of carbohydrate metabolism increases, our understanding of how fats affect our bodies have grown exponentially. Let us now look at the metabolism of fats more closely. Our bodies need the energy to function 24 hours a day.

The source of this energy, however, varies greatly. Waterworth, Catherine J. Kerr, Christopher J. McManus, Rianne Costello, Gavin R.

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Show more. CONTINUE TO SITE Or wait Consumers are adopting healthier and more sustainable diets. Studies from the s and s transformed the way we ate, the foods we ate and the amount we ate. The result? Detrimental effects on our health because the nutrition lies proved faulty.

Nutrition lies in the media are common; studies subsidized by pharmaceutical companies, food manufacturers and food associations are often tilted to make the public believe that one food is healthier than another to spur sales and increase visibility.

Here are the facts, based on true medical research, to debunk common nutrition misconceptions. I consider these to be the top nutrition lies circulating today. Saturated fat has been demonized for the better part of five decades for its supposed dangers to the heart.

The sugar industry scandal left many thinking saturated fat, not sugar, was the enemy. The results have been devastating. Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils have replaced saturated oils in the standard Western diet, in large part due to these misleading studies. Unfortunately, these oils are high in omega-6 fats and can cause your omegaomega-3 ratio to get out of whack, leading to chronic inflammation.

And what does that inflammation lead to? Colorectal cancer is often said to be associated with diets high in saturated fats. However, that is simply not true. In addition, a study of nearly 50, postmenopausal women found that a low-fat diet did not result in a significant reduction in breast cancer risk.

for individuals 65 and older as of Coconut oi l is one of the healthiest foods on the planet, no matter what the American Heart Association says. This extremely versatile, once-vilified oil is a medium-chain fatty acid that is easily digested and packed with anti-microbial properties, including lauric acid.

Unlike some other healthy fats , coconut oil is more resistant to heat damage. Ghee is another healthy fat with a high smoke point. Both ghee and coconut oil are actually associated with weight loss, as the energy from medium-chain fatty acids helps to burn other fats in our system.

For raw applications, use olive oil, almond oil or avocado oil. They are all terrific for adding nutrients and great flavor. It may seem like just the latest fad, but the high-fat, low-carb keto diet is about years old.

Can you lose significant amounts of weight on keto? Was that its original purpose? And, no, ketosis is not the same as diabetic ketoacidosis, a dangerous condition experienced by some diabetic patients.

The ketogenic diet is a completely different approach to dietary choices than calorie-counting, extreme willpower to make impossible sacrifices or even just a generally healthy diet full of whole foods.

Instead, people on keto eat lots of healthy fats and limit all carbohydrate intake. By making these choices, the body transitions to a fat-burning state ketosis which utilizes ketones produced by the liver, as well as consumed in certain foods for energy instead of glucose.

Truth: Going keto can help you lose weight, reverse some disease symptoms and is safe when done properly. There are a lot of keto diet myths out there, which I debunk in-depth in another article.

However, the science is there: The ketogenic diet is great for exercise, maintaining and building muscle mass, improving energy levels and beating brain fog. The longest study done on patients following a ketogenic diet lasted 10 years and no significant risk factors were noted in any blood test or disease occurrence.

Because it is somewhat restrictive and limits the benefits you can get from healthy foods such as sweet potatoes and most fruits which are higher in carbohydrates , I suggest cycling the keto diet on and off, particularly if you are trying to lose weight or if you may benefit from its disease-banishing benefits.

Just remember — not every diet is right for every person. If you are maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle and have no issues with brain fog, energy levels or potential diseases mentioned above, this might not be the diet for you.

I get it: Eating all organic foods is just not possible for some budgets. But I have good news! There is a way to determine how to replace the most dangerous non-organic foods with better options.

Each year, the Environmental Working Group releases the Dirty Dozen list, which details the pesticide content of non-organic produce. When it comes to meat, the question is a little more complex.

Organic meat is not the same thing as grass-fed or free-range, although those types of meats are important for other health reasons. Truth: Buying organic may help you save thousands of dollars in medical bills later in life. Unfortunately, the pesticides used for produce and the hormones and antibiotics given to animals raised for meat have a number of detrimental effects on your health.

These are just a few of the potential harms of contaminated produce and meats; We may not even be aware of the far-reaching dangers. However, it seems true that it may be best to avoid the worst options in order to save yourself early disease and medical bills.

Particularly for produce, try to buy organic anytime you get anything from the Dirty Dozen list. The top five offenders are strawberries, spinach, nectarines, apples and peaches. On the other hand, the top five clean produce items for are avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, cabbage and onions.

When it comes to meat, I recommend avoiding all processed meat. This nutrition lie seems to be a result of the high-protein diets popular a couple of decades ago. The myth is that high levels of protein in the diet contribute to decreased kidney and liver function, as well as osteoporosis.

These claims are simply not true. The truth is that protein contributes to every living cell and process in our body. Essential amino acids found in high-quality protein are associated with improved bone health, and a lower risk of fracture.

The protein actually helps bone metabolism and improves calcium retention, and it is potentially dangerous to consume inadequate protein. The senior population that is at an increased risk for osteoporosis , falls and broken bones are particularly in need of high-quality animal protein.

A study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research indicates that animal protein does not adversely affect the skeletal system, as some have reported. In fact, they found out that protein is essential in helping the body repair, and vital to preventing fatty buildup and damage to the liver.

Wild salmon is rich with omega — 3s, vitamins D, B3, B5, B6, and B12, protein, and potassium.