Making basic decisions on what sorts of foods will support a healthy body should be a simple task. However, given our modern world built on decades of flawed nutrition science and marketing, most of us arrive here today with mixed ideas of what sort of food tend to support vs. harm the human body.
Now, add to this the conflicting diet wars we can witness on television, bookshelves, and social media today. Should we be eating plant-based diets with most or all animal-based foods removed, or should we be consuming meat, dairy, and eggs as a healthy part of a balanced diet? Or, going even further, are plants harming our body so much that we should limit them and instead base our diets on animals?
These debates continue to rage on, all the while producing a source of confusion over what is best to eat.
The purpose of this article is not to get into this debate. Rather, the point is that even as diet experts continue to battle against one another over which food groups are best for the human body, there is actually a classification of food that every credible source seems to agree on as unhealthy for the human body.
It is to this agreed on group of products that we look to today as a clear classification of food that we would all do best to avoid.
This group of products is what I call industrial not-so-foods, named as such because:
- these products are created only through industrial processes – that is, processes that us modern humans have designed using technology
- these products no longer fit the traditional idea of a “food” – that is, any organic substance that comes directly from the ground, plant, or healthy animal
Food, as is traditionally understood by the human body, comes directly from nature and has only minimal processing such that the cellular structure remains intact, except for by disruption by simple mechanical forces (e.g. chopping, mixing, blending, etc.) or by low levels of heat (i.e. cooking). For more on what it means to be a real, whole food, check out A Guide to Choosing Real, Whole Foods.
Industrial not-so-foods do not fit this description of a food. Instead, this group of industrially crafted products are made up of mere remnants of what may have once been considered food and then combined with purely industrial chemical concoctions.
The data sends a clear message: consuming sugar, refined grains, and vegetable oil is an efficient way to program your body for disease. Therefore, if you avoid sugar, vegetable oil, and refined grains, you are well on your way to avoiding modern disease.
As a short overview of the pathophysiological responses of these three primary industrial not-so-foods:
- Refined carbohydrates cause a large spike in insulin, putting the entire body in fat storage mode. While in fat-storage mode, energy-containing molecules get converted to fat, fat accumulates in adipose tissue, and fat is unable to be burned for fuel. Moreover, the consumption of refined carbohydrates provides the body minimal nutritional benefit while sending a large dose of calories to the body, many of which are simply stored as fat.
- Sugar spikes insulin, is metabolized primarily by the liver, and delivers no nutritional value. This means that when you consume sugar, you give no benefit to the body while putting a large load on the liver, from which fat is readily synthesized. When done in a chronic pattern, this synthesis of fat results in dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, weight gain, and many other common problems. Moreover, these problems occur specifically in the liver, resulting in a fatty, dysfunctional liver, which in turn negatively affects every system of the body in which the liver plays a role (e.g. the cardiovascular system and metabolism).
- Vegetable oil is a biochemically reactive, high caloric substance that provides no benefit for the body. These highly reactive oils are free to react with tissues and molecules throughout the body. When these oils are integrated into the structure of the body itself (e.g. cellular membranes), the functional capabilities of these components then become compromised.
Unfortuntately, these industrially processed ingredients are in almost every item that individuals consume today. Pick up any packaged item in the grocery store, and unless that manufacturer has gone through extreme lengths to ensure they are not contained with, then you can be certain they will be. This means that any packaged or pre-prepared item must be examined carefully for any refined grain, sugar, or vegetable oil – that is, the ingredients list should be read in its entirety to ensure that these are not contained within.
Let me repeat that statement, because it is one action that many individuals often overlook: When picking up any packaged or pre-prepared food item, examine the ingredients list for any refined carbohydrate, vegetable oil, or sugar. If they are contained within, my advice is to choose something else. Note that when doing so, these ingredients go by many different names, so it is in your best interest to educate yourself on this topic.
Instead of eating these three ingredients that form the base of industrial not-so-foods, I encourage you to instead focus on real foods – foods that came from the earth or from other animals without the interference of industrial processing methods.
Actions for you to take to avoid industrial foods:
Instead of a refined grain (or other carbohydrate) component of your meal:
- Choose whole carbohydrates
- Consuming whole grains creates a relatively (to refined grain) slower release of glucose and in turn lower insulin response, and additionally provides the body with micronutrients. However, this must be done with caution, as most foods labeled as “whole grain” are really just industrial not-so-foods that have a small proportion of whole grain, allowing them to get away with that label. Therefore, if you desire to continue consuming grains in your diet, I urge you to pay careful attention. Instead of purchasing foods labeled as “whole grain” it may be better to begin with the entire whole grain itself – that is, choose grains in their intact form as opposed to grains that have already been broken down for you and combined with other ingredients to form a product.
- Alternatively, you could decide to ditch the grains entirely in the name of consuming the many alternative delicious, nutritious carbohydrates with much lower glycemic indexes, along with the absence of gluten and many of the other potentially problematic components.
- Making an effort to opt for carbohydrates with a lower glycemic index will likely result in better control of blood sugar, fat burning capabilities, body weight, and all the mechanisms that result in turn. This may not be a concern for many individuals, but for those of you that are sensitive to glucose and insensitive to insulin, opting for low-glycemic carbohydrates will likely be beneficial.
- Making an effort to avoid gluten may provide additional benefit, as gluten has proven itself to be problematic for many individuals, especially in the amounts contained in modern grains.
- Consider adding more fat to your diet in place of carbohydrates
- Carbohydrates and fats are your two primary sources of energy. You can consider them as reasonable trade-offs – that is, the choice is yours as to whether you want to get the bulk of your energy from carbohydrate, fat, or a good combination of both. Adding healthy fats to the diet in place of refined carbohydrates is a healthy option to give the body the energy it needs to function.
- There are a number of benefits of fats over carbohydrates as a fuel source, including the high satiation value and the fact that fat does not stimulate insulin and therefore does not put the body in fat storage mode (a state in which the bulk flow of energy is driven into storage as fat and fat is not able to be utilized as a fuel source in the mitochondria). Additionally, fats such as grass-fed butter provide the body with important micronutrients (e.g. vitamin K2, vitamin D) that are not found in plant/carbohydrate-based foods.
Instead of consuming vegetable oil:
- choose real-food fat sources for your unsaturated fat sources
- the consumption of vegetable oil is the easiest way to overload your body with pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids. To make matters worse, the highly processed form of these naturally unstable fats make them not only pro-inflammatory, but also primed for unwanted and dangerous reactions
- nuts, seeds, some fruits (e.g. avocado), fish, and many other foods exist from which you can get healthy, stable form of polyunsaturated fats.
- choose stable fat sources
- Butter and coconut oil, including their derivatives (ghee, MCT oil, etc.) are great sources of stable fats that will not react with your precious body tissues. This makes them a much safer source of fat. Furthermore, these fats provide extra benefits, such as the delivery of high quality nutrients in grass-fed butter, or the wonderful benefits of MCT oil.
- Note, the idea that saturated fat is bad and polyunsaturated fat is good is incredibly outdated. Saturated fats are much more stable sources of fat. Therefore they are less likely to be damaged when heated, and in turn they will not circulate through the body causing reactions that cause oxidative stress and inflammation. Both fats are an important part of a healthy diet; taking time to understand the role of each type of fat will provide great benefit for each individual
- Oils from monounsaturated fats (e.g. olive oil and avocado oil) are in better condition because these oils are easily extracted from their whole food source. Consuming extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil gives the body a dose of healthy, structurally in-tact monounsaturated fats, given that you have not subjected the fragile olive oil to high heat in cooking or too much light for too much time.
- Butter and coconut oil, including their derivatives (ghee, MCT oil, etc.) are great sources of stable fats that will not react with your precious body tissues. This makes them a much safer source of fat. Furthermore, these fats provide extra benefits, such as the delivery of high quality nutrients in grass-fed butter, or the wonderful benefits of MCT oil.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of getting vegetable oil out of your kitchen. I recommend replacing it with avocado oil, olive oil, coonut oil, and butter (grass-fed).
- For cooking, I recommend coconut oil and avocado oil. Both are stable and thus will not be damaged due to reasonable levels of heat (let’s just skip the deep frying altogether). I use coconut oil when I enjoy the addition of the coconut flavor (e.g. for my eggs). I use avocado oil when I do not want that coconut flavor (e.g. on kale)
- I use olive oil for dressings, as I enjoy the addeds flavor. I avoid olive oil for cooking as it is easily damaged by heat.
- I’ll substitute in butter for pretty much anything. It is delicious, packed will essential vitamins, and provides a perfect blend of many different forms of fatty acids.
Instead of sugar
Let’s be honest here – sugar is an unnecessary addition to anyone’s diet. The only reason for consuming sugar is pure pleasure. It does not provide any nutritional benefit, only serving to light up the pleasure centers of the brain and make us feel wonderful for a fleeting moment. Do yourself a favor and begin making an effort to get this mind-hacking substance out of your life
- Cut sugar out of your diet
- I acknowledge the idea of cutting sugar out of your life to be a ridiculous, seemingly impossible goal. Sugar seems to be in everything and escaping its clutching can be an incredibly daunting task. But real, whole foods do not contain refined sugar, and therefore when consuming a diet based on real, whole foods, it is actually quite easy to avoid sugar.
- Sugar is addictive, and therefore cutting it out of the diet can be incredibly unpleasant. But once you have escaped the clutches of a sugar addiction, you will find that these sweet foods that were once delicious are actually quite awful. In turn you will be able to enjoy the real, natural flavors present in real foods, as opposed to the overwhelming wave of artificial flavor that was engineered inside a laboratory by a man whose job it is to hijack your taste buds and send overpowering flavor signals to your brain.
- If cutting sweet stuff out of your life is not in the cards right now, consider opting for these alternatives whenever possible:
- Choose a whole piece of fruit to satisfy a sweets craving. Avoid fruit juices, as these are just sugar bombs disguised under a label of a healthy food.
- Opt for dark chocolate to satisfy a craving. It contains smaller amounts of sugar and contains beneficial nutrients, such as polyphenols.
- Alternative, natural sweeteners exist that can be used to replace some of the sugary treats you indulge in. If you opt for non-caloric sweeteners make sure they are natural, not synthetic chemicals such as stevia or monk fruit.
Remember, your journey to good health begins with getting these industrial not-so-foods out of your diet. Once you have done work to remove these from your diet (at least to a large degree), then we can get to work addressing the more controversial subjects, such as ideal macronutrient ratios, food groups, and micronutrients.
Until then, I once again recommend that your entire focus is put on the task of removing these three industrial not-so-foods, and replacing them with real, whole foods.
References
Aeberli, I., Gerber, P. A., Hochuli, M., Kohler, S., Haile, S. R., Gouni-berthold, I., … Berneis, K. (2011). Low to moderate sugar-sweetened beverage consumption impairs glucose and lipid metabolism and promotes inflammation in healthy young men : a randomized controlled trial 1 – 4. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, (1), 479–485. http://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.111.013540.Sugar-sweetened
Biddinger, S. B., Hernandez-Ono, A., Rask-Madsen, C., Haas, J. T., Alemán, J. O., Suzuki, R., … Kahn, C. R. (2008). Hepatic Insulin Resistance Is Sufficient to Produce Dyslipidemia and Susceptibility to Atherosclerosis. Cell Metabolism, 7(2), 125–134. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2007.11.013
Falade, A. O., Oboh, G., Ademiluyi, A. O., & Odubanjo, O. V. (2015). Consumption of thermally oxidized palm oil diets alters biochemical indices in rats. Beni-Suef University Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 4(2), 150–156. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.bjbas.2015.05.009
Feinman, R. D., Pogozelski, W. K., Astrup, A., Bernstein, R. K., Fine, E. J., Westman, E. C., … Worm, N. (2015). Dietary carbohydrate restriction as the first approach in diabetes management: Critical review and evidence base. Nutrition, 31(1), 1–13. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2014.06.011
Hudgins LC, Hellerstein M, Seidman C, Neese R, Diakun J, Hirsch J. (1996). Human fatty acid synthesis is stimulated by a eucaloric low fat, high carbohydrate diet. J Clin Invest. 97, 2081–2091.
Lustig, R. H., Mulligan, K., Noworolski, S. M., Tai, V. W., Wen, M. J., Erkin-cakmak, A., … Schwarz, J. (2016). Isocaloric Fructose Restriction and Metabolic Improvement in Children with Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome, 24(2), 453–460. http://doi.org/10.1002/oby.21371
Seppanen, C.M. & Saari Csallany, A. J Amer Oil Chem Soc (2002) 79: 1033. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11746-002-0598-z
Vaskova, H., & Buckova, M. (2015). Thermal degradation of vegetable oils: Spectroscopic measurement and analysis. Procedia Engineering, 100(January), 630–635. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2015.01.414