Americans are overfed and undernourished. That's right, the most obese children and adults in the country are also the most nutritionally deficient (1)!
How can those two things possibly co-exist?
The mistake is to think that if you eat an abundance of calories, your diet automatically delivers all the nutrients your body needs. But the opposite is true. The more processed food you eat, the more vitamins you need. That's because vitamins and minerals lubricate the wheels of our metabolism, helping the chemical reactions in our bodies run properly. Among those biochemical processes greased by nutrients is the regulation of sugar and burning of fat. The problem is that the standard American diet (SAD) is energy dense (too many calories) but nutrient poor (not enough vitamins and minerals). Too many "empty calories" confuse the metabolism and pack on the pounds.
A Nutritionally Deficient Culture
After reviewing the major nutritional research over the last 40 years and doing nutritional testing on over 10,000 patients -- I can tell you that Americans are suffering from massive nutritional deficiencies. What I see in my office is reflected in the scientific literature. Upwards of 30 percent of American diets fall short of such common plant-derived nutrients as magnesium, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and Vitamin A (2). More than 80 percent of Americans are running low on Vitamin D (3). And nine out of 10 people are deficient in omega-3 fats, which are critical for staving off inflammation and controlling blood sugar levels. (For more information, plus a quiz on where your nutritional imbalances lie, see The Blood Sugar Solution).
So, what happened? Why are we so undernourished?
* Food is less nutritious. Processed foods, stuffed with high fructose corn syrup, refined flours and trans fats-are a modern phenomenon. These foods crowd out more nutrient-dense foods because they are inexpensive and convenient. Your grandmother wouldn't recognize most of the foods filling the center aisles of our grocery stores today. Imagine what early humans would think of Lunchables! Our species evolved eating foods that contained dramatically higher levels of all vitamins, minerals, and essential fats (4). Wild game is leaner and healthier than animals raised in factory farms. Plus, the meats and fish eaten by hunter-gatherers were almost always fresh. Most store bought meat today are laced with chemicals, such as nitrates, used to process and preserve.
*Soil is being squeezed. There is a reason our food is less nutritious, industrial farming is depleting the nutrients in the country's farmland. As a result, most vegetables harvested today have fewer nutrients than those plucked from the ground just two generations ago. One of the largest and most compelling studies on this topic was published in 2004 in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. Using data from the USDA's archives, a team of scientists looked at the nutrient content of 43 fruits and vegetables -- everything from rutabaga to honeydew -- grown in 1950 and compared them to the identical fruits and veggies grown in 1999. Their findings were disturbing. Levels of calcium were down 16 percent, iron 15 percent, and Vitamin C 20 percent (5). Not a single nutrient had increased in the past 50 years.
Because those foods contain fewer nutrients, the servings we do eat don't deliver as much nutrition as they once did. Fewer nutrients means lowered immunity and increased vulnerability to chronic disease and obesity. When your body doesn't get the right nutrition, it just keeps asking for more food. The endless cycle of craving a Catch-22; people are eating more, getting fatter, but still not feeling satisfied -- it's a nightmare from which they can't escape.
*Refining kills nutrients. In general, foods are stripped of their nutrients during the refining process. One of the most telling examples of this mistake is wheat. The process of refining whole wheat flour into white reduces the fiber by 80 percent and slashes levels of essential minerals, vitamins, and phytonutrients (6). Eventually, food manufacturers started adding synthetic versions of the most important vitamins and minerals back into food and call the food "enriched." But the idea that you can process out nutrients, such as B vitamins in the making of white flour, and then add them back is reductionistic and neglects the synergistic qualities of food. Food makers call these "enriched foods" but that's only because they are so impoverished in the first place!
Three Ways to Grab More Nutrient-rich Calories
Remember, food is your best medicine! Whole foods are naturally packaged with a vast array of nutrients that work synergistically to optimize your health. They ripple throughout our entire physiology, reducing inflammation, boosting detoxification, balancing hormones, and providing powerful antioxidant protection -- all things that repair the underlying causes of disease.
To learn more please see The Blood Sugar Solution. Get one book or get two and give one to someone you love -- you might be saving their life. When you purchase the book from this link you will automatically receive access to the following special bonuses:
Now I'd like to hear from you...
Do you feel nutrient-starved?
Is the majority of your diet processed foods?
Are you overweight from eating empty calories?
Please leave your thoughts by adding a comment below.
To your good health,
Mark Hyman, MD
References:
(1) Gillis L, Gillis A. Nutrient inadequacy in obese and non-obese youth. Can J Diet Pract Res. 2005 Winter;66(4):237-42.
(2)Compiled by Dr. Gerald Combs, USDA, Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center, as viewed in Linda Pollak and Philipp Simon, "Strategic Goal 5: Improve the Nation's Nutrition and Health," presentation at "Plant Breeding: A Vital Capacity for U.S. National Goals," workshop, Raleigh, North Carolina, February 2007.
(3)Reis JP, et al. Vitamin D status and cardiometabolic risk factors in the United States adolescent population. Pediatrics. 2009 Aug 3.
(4)Cordain L, et al.. Origin and evolution of the Western diet: Health implications for the 21st century. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 8 (2):341-54. Review.
(5)Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999," Journal of the CAN, vol23, no6
(6) Jonnalagadda SS, et al. Putting the whole grain puzzle together: Health benefits associated with whole grains--summary of the American Society for Nutrition 2010 Satellite Symposium. The Journal of Nutrition. 2011 March 30
Mark Hyman, M.D. is a practicing physician, founder of The UltraWellness Center, a four-time New York Times bestselling author, and an international leader in the field of Functional Medicine. You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, watch his videos on YouTube, become a fan on Facebook, and subscribe to his newsletter.
Follow Mark Hyman, MD on Twitter: www.twitter.com/markhymanmd
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Many people cannot make vitamin A from carotenes or DHA from ALA.
The problem is not that people eat too much meat or animal fat, but that what plant foods they do eat are the worst ones; grains and their products, soy ditto, sugar and other sweeteners.
However lean ancient animals like mammoths were, which is debatable, traditional hunters go for the fattiest meats first; our ancestors broke bones to get at marrow and brain, which are very fatty organs.
Lean muscle meat is an abomination that no previous humans have ever singled out as the only worthwhile part of any animal. Meat is a wholefood, and removing fat is an unnatural way of processing it. Can you see anyone in previous centuries saying "lets cut off the fat and eat this with vegetable oil instead"?
"A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.
In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States."
https://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/
Listen to the audio, above, as Limbaugh ridicules Michelle Obama's healthy-eating campaign, flat out calls her a "hypocrite." On one hand, Limbaugh said, she is encouraging children to get healthy and eat "roots, berries, and tree bark" but was recently seen enjoying a high-calorie meal of fatty ribs.
This is what passed as "important" information justifying "free speech."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dailydish/2011/02/rush-limbaugh-crtiticizes-first-lady-michelle-obamas-weight-nutritional-campaign.html
Seize control of these school lunch monsters who are clogging your child's arteries. We demand Organic Kale! We demand Whole Wheat, gluten free pasta! We demand only the best and we can afford it by shopping smarter,locally and organically and cutting the stranglehold of Corporate lunch programs.
Go tho the market and for $3, you get a pound of ground beef, and have 4 "quarter pounders"!
I do agree, however that processed foods are less expensive than fresh, but you get less food for the price.
Every morning, I see on the bus, kids going to school, eating a bag of "cheezy poofs, and a can of Pepsi. Are the parents just too lazy to get out of bed and pour cereal and milk into a bowl?
Alvarask Commented 13 hours ago
"I'm healthy and happy. I have a diet that is 99% unprocessed
and which is mostly organic. I eat meats, eggs, plentiful nuts,
raw milk and lots of cheeses, fresh raw veges every day, cooked
veges regularly, and a small piece of fruit every day. I have
removed all trans fats and polyunsaturated fats from my diet
and use only butter, ghee, lard, peanut oil or coconut oil for
cooking, and some extra virgin olive oil. I am also an
excellent cook of Indian vegetarian cuisine, which I now eat
sparingly due to its high carb content, but still enjoy as an
occasional treat. The notion that vegans have that people who
eat meat are eating nothing BUT meat is a little strange if you
ask me."
quit underhand insulting '' heavy '' girls!
"Hey NDP, you need a little education. I do recommend you start with Gary Taubes. Insulin in the blood pushes fat (made from the sugars we ate) into fat cells. While insulin remains in the blood, those fat cells are unable to release the fat. That fat would have been used not only as fuel, but for a multitude of purposes in the body. If you are insulin resistant, then you are just pumping in masses of insulin which causes you to experience low blood sugar, which in turn tends to make you hungry for the nearest sugary or starchy thing you can find. Thus, the insulin resistant person can start the day with carbs and spiral down all day in a cycle of blood sugar highs and lows, each time becoming more and more hungry, and more often than not seeking out more sugars and carbs to prop up their
blood sugar."