New Nutrition Guidelines!

I have been anxiously waiting a whole year for this final document! The day after a lawsuit from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the guidelines were finally published! Thank you, PCRM!

2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans have a few exciting changes:

1) The guidelines recommend that all Americans consume as little cholesterol as possible. Since cholesterol is only found in animal foods, this is a wonderful piece of advice for those promoting a whole foods, plant based way of eating!

2) Boys and men are warned to consume less protein. Should I repeat this? Males should eat less protein! Since men and boys get most of their protein from meat, this sounds like another impressive recommendation to eat fewer animal foods. It should be a relief as well, since this population is always especially worried that they aren't getting enough. 

3) Among the still present dairy recommendation (boo!), soy milk is listed within the category (yay!). I really owe you, my readers, an article about this. For now, I will leave you with one aspect, bone health. Among people across the world, taking into account many studies (meta analysis), the people in countries who consume the least amount of dairy, experience the fewest fractures. There are countries all in between that follow the same relationship, as dairy consumption rises, so too does bone fracture! The people in countries who consume the most dairy have the highest rates of bone fracture.

I was going to give you a visual of this, but instead I will just show you a Google image search for "milk intake and hip fracture". Notice all the lines are going up and to the right, whether the studies are looking at calcium intake, dairy intake, or animal protein, as these intakes increase, fracture rates increase. In summary, the less dairy you consume, the lower your risk of bone fracture.

Along these lines, it's a good time to share:
Trans Fat Ban in US ...this is separate from the guidelines, however, related, and super-noteworthy! The FDA decided in June 2015 that based on all the nutrition research available, trans fat is not safe for human consumption. It has therefore been taken off the Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS) list, and so may not be added to processed foods. I couldn't find any new information regarding this ban which occurred in June, but I am hopeful that companies are in the process of bettering their products so that they will be safer to eat. Wahoo!

Here are is a post about trans fat. Among the myraid of reasons to avoid meat (here are two posts: 5 reasons! and Plant Based is Powerful!, it must be noted that there are actually trans fats in animal fat, so once trans fat is out of processed foods, the only way to get it completely out of your diet, is to eliminate animal foods from your diet.


Stay tuned! I will be sharing more and more with you about all that I learned at a life-changing course I attended in February 2016 (McDougall Advanced Study Weekend). I just end by sharing my impression from deep in my heart that my totally unreal experience that will inspire me forever! With time, you all will no doubt benefit as well!

Food Labels for Smarties!

No one who takes the time to LEARN is a DUMMY!

Cartoon by Mike Adams at naturalnews.com.

Don't be fooled by POSITIVE messages all over the package! The proof is in the NUTRITION FACTS and the INGREDIENTS list! Know your numbers on food labels! Easy as 1,2,3, ...4!

#1  FIBER
If you ever count anything, try counting fiber grams! Increase fiber intake gradually, but nearly EVERYONE can benefit from more fiber!

#2  Avoid saturated fat and trans fat, and also look under ingredients for sneaky culprits! (click HERE for more on these fats)

#3 Look for a product with more protein since this increases the energy you need to digest and metabolize the food; click here for a bit more on PROTEIN.

#4 INGREDIENTS!
Short list is great! NO list is even better!
Avoid the following words: enriched, hydrogenated, any sneaky form of sugar

Here a few more pointers about ingredients care of Food Rules by Michael Pollan:
Avoid also: anything your great grandma wouldn't recognize, a third grader couldn't pronounce, or you couldn't picture in its natural form.

For MORE GREAT FOOD RULES click HERE!

Plus, another post discussing some GREAT FOOD RULES!

NOTE: I am actually NOT concerned with calories, though SERVING SIZE is something to check on...often a single serving is much smaller than what one normally eats in a single sitting. If you're following the 4 recommendations above, it really won't much matter about calories or serving size because you'll certainly be eating a healthy food -- NOURISHING your body! GO YOU!

COMING SOON: let's look at the Example of Bread...
White, Wheat, Whole Wheat, Bread v. tortilla, Sprouted Grain...

COMMENTS: Do you look at labels? What do you watch, count, etc the most?

FREE Yourself from these FATS!

There are HEALTHY FATS, which I talk about all the time!, and there are UNHEALTHY fats, which I prefer not to focus on, but a few comments might be helpful!

There are TWO fats one might want to limit:

SATURATED (mainly from ANIMALS: meat, poultry, cheese, fat in milk, butter, etc.)

Exception: Wild fish, especially salmon!...these are HEALTHY FATS called Omega-3 FATS.

TRANS fat sources (mostly from PROCESSED foods, unfortunately regular/traditional peanut butter (click HERE for a bit on "natural" peanut butter), fast food, fried foods, donuts, packaged desserts, many coffee creamers, surprisingly...sprinkles!)

These fats are detrimental to our health in TOO many ways, but I'll give you TWO that should be convincing!

HARMFUL to our:

Brains, nerves

Hearts, blood vessels

Especially since our nerves and blood vessels affect EVERY OTHER PART of our bodies!

This image was taken from randomgoodstuff.com ... perhaps you'll find something you like there!

I don't particularly like the show. So ... much to my surprise, the Simpsons Movie was pretty entertaining! Perhaps hormones were involved, but I honestly cried like 5 times during this movie, and of course, laughed a lot too. To give the makers credit, it's a pretty creative show.

ACTION PLAN:

TO REDUCE your SATURATED fat:

You can simply decrease the amount of animal products that you consume, adding a bit more veggies, subtracting some meat, substituting some sour cream for some non-fat Greek yogurt, trying to make the switch from whole or 2% milk, to non-fat or 1% milk.  

You may enjoy 5 BIG Reasons to Make Your Meat Portions Small!

For TRANS fat REDUCTION:

Go to food LABELS!  There is a place for TRANS fat on the Nutrition Facts. You want this to be ZERO. Even with a zero, you still want to look at the INGREDIENTS LIST. If you see the word HYDROGENATED anywhere, ESPECIALLY early on the list, the product should be avoided!  

When there is less than 0.5 grams of trans fat, Nutrition Facts can say 0g trans. Half a gram may not sound like much, but just a tiny bit of trans fat is harmful to your body!

This example is from nabiscoworld.com.  Spy the fat words to avoid? 

...HYDROGENATED, Saturated, Trans (usually below saturated...not shown here).