The cumulative guide to nutrition

[Dave Kaminski]

Any nutritional experts here?

What goes into a good/great/excellent diet? What would you suggest to maximize energy and health while enjoying a diverse set of food groups? How much protein intake? How much water? What to look out for?

[Trina]

I am no expert but I do have a little something to contribute...

FIBER!!

Yeah, that's all I got. :P

[Trustme]

well, I am not sure that fiber is such a good thing after all.

for example see:
Amazon Online Reader : Fiber Menace: The Truth About the Leading Role of Fiber in Diet Failure, Constipation, Hemorrhoids, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn's Disease, and Colon Cancer

I am neutral on this topic and I haven't read the book. Just wanted to add it because I spotted it recently and it may (or may not) have some truths in it.

Volkmar

[Trina]

Originally Posted by Trustme

well, I am not sure that fiber is such a good thing after all.

for example see:
Amazon Online Reader : Fiber Menace: The Truth About the Leading Role of Fiber in Diet Failure, Constipation, Hemorrhoids, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn's Disease, and Colon Cancer

I am neutral on this topic and I haven't read the book. Just wanted to add it because I spotted it recently and it may (or may not) have some truths in it.

Volkmar

I am definitely going to have to check that out! Thanks for the link!

[Paul Park]

I , more or less, follow the Weston Price diet In fact, I found Steve's site after linking, to his article on sleep, from Mercola.com. Dr Mercola recommends a diet similar to Weston Price. We grow and eat grass-fed meat, raw milk, and lots of fresh organic produce. We were mostly vegan for several years, more for environmental and spiritual reasons, than health.

[ahimel]

Here's the part of my college nutrition textbook that have stuck with me over the years.

There's essentially three kinds of things that can give you calories:
* Fat -- dense in calories, used by your body for storing energy. Also helps some critical processes in your body whose details I do not recall, but it is ESSENTIAL for continued life. Comes in two varieties: saturated (solid at room temperature, generally more-or-less bad for you) and unsaturated (liquid at room temperature, might be generally more-or-less good for you, but we've only recently started studying it, so there's not enough data to be sure.)
* Carbohydrates -- aka sugar. Used primarily as the fuel source for your body, although most natural carbohydrates also have some nutrients and fiber mixed in - more on that later. Comes in two varieties: simple (breaks down quickly, provides quick energy boost, may cause glycemic spikes that lead to diabetes) and complex (takes longer to break down, causing a more consistant release of energy. Probably has no health disadvantages at all.)
* Protein - protein is our name for any amalgamation of amino acids. In biology class you may recall that there were a lot of amino acids -- DNA maniuplated amino acids to do its job, cells had amino acids floating around doing various things. Protein is where you get those amino acids. Without it, your DNA has nothing out of which to make your hormones, cell walls, muscles, etc. There are (IIRC) 23 different kinds of amino acids that your body uses. A "complete" protein has all 23, a "partial" or "incomplete" protein is missing some. All forms of meat are complete -- they were once in the body of an animal that used all 23 acids to make the muscles -- but many high-protein vegetables such as beans are also complete.

Despite the bad rap that carbs have gotten lately, about 60% of your calories should be from carbohydrates. Fat should comprise no more than 30%, an no more than 10% of the total (1/3 of your fat intake) should be saturated. Since fat is more than twice as dense as carbs or protein, this means you'll eat about 10-15% of the WEIGHT of your diet in fat, in order to get 30% of the calories from fat. Protein will obviously be around 10% of your calories; the minimum requirement is x grams, where x is calculated by some formula in my textbook that I've forgotten. You can probably Google it, but a 120-pound person requires about 34 grams/day.

If your diet is that of a typical American (which may be a bad assumption, since you're in this forum, and may not be American, but it's the only stat I have) about 50% of your calories come from fat, and more than half of those (25% or more) are from saturated fat. You eat 3-4 times as much protein as you need. You get about the right number of carbs, but since you're eating so much more fat and protein than you need, you're getting way too many calories, and can't seem to keep the weight from creeping up.

There are also vitamins -- they're not "digestable" in the sense that they give you energy, but they supply random little bits and pieces of your body. Blood is something like 90% oxygen and hydrogen (aka water) and 9% carbon, but without that 1% of iron, your hemoglobin doesn't work, your blood doesn't take oxygen to your brain, and life stops for you.
Fortunatly, vitamin deficiencies are rare. They were common back in the days when the majority of the world ate the same thing day after day after day. (Potatoes in Ireland, rice in China, etc.) In a world where you can get strawberries in Sweden in January, that's not a big deal. Watch out for calcium -- people often get low on that.

Finally, the last two critical ingredients are fiber and water. Again, neither of these are "digestable", but they serve as your body's cleaning service. Fiber acts as kind of a scrub brush, and water washes toxins away. You want 20-30 grams of fiber/day (most US citizens get about 1) and enough water to keep you from feeling thirsty or dehydrated. Although the 8 glasses of water/day rule was kind of made up on the spot by some random health coach, it's a good number to shoot for. After you've done that for 30 days or so, you'll start to get a feel for how much water you need.

Regarding the concern about whether fiber is good for you or not -- I'd say try it. Since I started eating 20 grams/day, I have felt SO much better. On the days I don't get it (at a conference and have to eat fast food) I feel SO much worse. But see how it goes for you.

What I found most helpful in switching my diet from the typical US diet to a pretty healthy one was simply awareness. I set up a spreadsheet that tracked total calories, total fat calories, total saturated fat calories, etc. (Private Message me if you want me to send you a copy.) And at the beginning (2 years ago) I had pretty typical results - 50% of my calories from saturated fat, more sodium than you can shake a stick at. But I didn't DO anything about it; I just tracked it, and enjoyed my warm-and-fuzzy glow when I did manage to get my fat calories down to 30%. Now I eat 2-3 fruits and veggies a day (not as many as I should, but I'm working on that area), have so little fat in my diet that I have to make sure I eat the minimum 17%/day, and so little sodium that I have to track it to make sure I get the minimum of 1500g. It took 2 years to get here, but it was worth it to be able to say, "I don't have enough fat or sodium in my diet. *sigh* I'll just have to eat some Cheetos."

I would also see if you can find a copy of YOU -- the owner's manual It's all those things that you know about your car or your oven that nobody ever told you about your body.

[markholden]

Read Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman and The China Study by T. Colin Campbell.

[Sadhana]

YOU: The Owner's Manual is an excellent book. Fun, light-hearted, but packed with information. I'd recommend reading it, too. :-)

[Andrew Michaels]

Originally Posted by markholden

Read Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman and The China Study by T. Colin Campbell.

I second those books. Both are excellent. I've been a vegan for three years and have found the results to be amazing. Fuhrman's book will tell you how to have the best health by becoming a vegan or near vegan. Campbell's' book will tell you the science of why meat and dairy are killing you/causing cancer/ causing most western diseases that we suffer from.

I'm actually moving onto raw foods now, which is significantly less scientifically supported. I'll see how that goes. Alreadymy stamina for running has increased quite a bit.

Best of Luck

[moltar]

What I say might sound really obvious to some, but many fail to follow this anyways.

Eliminate all junk food, processed foods, processed sugars. Stick with organic food choices. Eat in 40:20:40 -- Carbs:Fat:Protein ratio.

Eat good fats. E.g. nuts, oils. Try to eat less red meat.

[sk8joyful]

Nutrition-guide?
1. what's your Blood-type?
2. what's your current, & desired weight?
3. what's your Blood-status?, as far as minerals, vit-D3, etc...
4. what's your desired Outcome? healthwise