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Vegetables:
Eat more,
more, more!!! This is the one area where most everyone can
improve their diet, and it is an especially important area.
Always look for a variety, although make the green leafy type
your preference. This includes spinach, chard, beet greens,
kale, broccoli, mustard greens, etc…
As stated above for proteins, the quality of
your produce (fresh and organic preferred) and the method of
preparation is critical. Raw is preferred with lightly steamed
or sautéed as your second choice for all vegetables. Use
butter, coconut oil or olive oil to sauté. When eating salads, try not to
eat iceberg lettuce, rather use lettuces with a rich green
color, sprouts and raw nuts. Don’t make salads your only
choice for veggies.
Fruits:
Most people
wrongly try to drink their fruits. Fruit juice is loaded with
the simple sugar fructose, which is shunted into forming
triglycerides and ultimately stored as fat. Without the fiber
in the fruit, juice sends a rapid burst of fructose into the
blood stream. When you do eat fruit, only eat one type of
fruit at a time on an empty stomach; second, avoid the
sweetest fruits/tropical fruits, except papaya which is very
rich in digestive enzymes (fruits from colder climates are
preferred); and third, eat only the highest quality, fresh and
organic when possible.
Carbohydrates:
This is a very
tricky area. Most people have one classification for
carbohydrates when in reality there are really three different
types – complex, simple, and processed. Unfortunately, for
most people suffering with imbalance problems, almost any
carbohydrate is a no-no. It is a physiological fact that the
more carbohydrates you eat, the more you will want. Craving
carbohydrates is a symptom of an imbalance, so you can use
this craving to monitor your progress. Overall, eat vegetables
as your carbohydrate choice and limit grains (even the whole
grains can be trouble). When you do eat whole grains, only
have them in moderation, and only at dinner. If you start the
day with carbohydrates, you are more likely to crave them
throughout the day, and then you’ll eat more and it’s down
hill from there. Absolutely stay away from white breads,
muffins, cookies, candies, crackers, pastas, white rice and
most baked goods (100% rye only bread is the least of the
evils).
Wheat and Grains:
There has been
a tremendous amount of debate regarding grains. Whole,
unprocessed grains can be rich sources of vitamins and
minerals, but with soil depletion and the special strains of
grain that modern agriculture have developed, it isn’t clear
what nutrients remain. The two predominantly used grains in
this country are genetically engineered and have 5 times the
gluten content and only 1/3 of the protein content of the
original wheat from which they were derived. This high gluten
content is to blame for many peoples’ allergic reactions. When
scholars have studied disease patterns and the decline of
various civilizations, many of the degenerative diseases
developed when cultivation of grains became a major part of
their diet. Chemicals naturally found in certain grains, lack
of the appropriate enzymes, and the carbohydrate content of
grains make them a source of trouble for many individuals. Our
opinion at this time is to minimize grains such as wheat and
barley. Unprocessed rye, rolled oats and brown rice can be
considered on occasion to give you more variety. Some of the
Danish and German brown breads like pumpernickel seem to be
nutritious.
Sweeteners:
Use only a
small amount of raw Tupelo honey or Stevia as sweetener.
Absolutely NO NutraSweet, corn syrup or table sugar. Although
Dr. Page did not allow raw cane sugar, it does provide the
nutrients to aid in its metabolism. If you cheat, be smart and
use only small amounts with a meal.
Fats:
The bad news
is you probably do not get enough of the right fats in your
diets. So, please use olive oil (cold pressed, extra virgin),
walnut oil, flax seed, coconut and grapeseed oils. These are all
actually beneficial, as long as they are cold-pressed. When
cooking use only raw butter, coconut oil or olive oil – they
are the only three oils safe to cook with. Avoid all hydrogenated and
partially hydrogenated fats! They are poisons to your
system! Never eat margarine again! Also, avoid sugary
peanut butter – eat only natural peanut butter. Eat all the
avocados and raw nuts you desire.
If you think eating fat will make you fat,
think again. When you eat fat, a chemical signal is sent to
your brain to slow down the movement of food out of your
stomach. As a result, you feel full. It is not surprising that
recent research is showing that those who eat “fat free”
products tend to actually consume more calories than those who
eat foods that have not had their fat content reduced (low fat
usually means high sugar/high calories). In addition, fats are
used not only for energy, but also for building the membrane
around every single cell in your body. Fats also play a role
in the formation of hormones, which of course make you feel
and function well. It is far worse to be hormone depleted from
a low fat diet than it is to over eat fat. The sickest people
we see are the ones who have been on a fat-free diet for a
long period of time. Like carbohydrates, choose your fats
wisely – this program is not suggesting fried or processed
foods.
Milk Products:
Forget
pasteurized cow milk products (milk, certain cheeses, sour
cream, half and half, ice cream, cottage cheese and yogurt).
If you only knew all the potential problems from pasteurized
milk, you’d swear it off forever. Dr. Page found out that milk
was actually more detrimental than sugar for many people (man
is the only mammal that continues to drink milk after
weaning). Avoiding dairy will make it much easier for you to
attain your optimal level of health and hormonal balance. Raw
butter and Kefir (liquid yogurt), however, are excellent
sources of essential nutrients and vitamins. Raw goat and
sheep cheeses and milk products are great alternatives because
their genetic code and fat content is apparently more like
humans. We’d still be cautious with these, however.
There has been a lot of hype about using soy
milk and rice milk to replace dairy. While they sound like
healthy alternatives, what they really are is highly processed
foods that are primarily simple carbohydrates. You’re better
off doing without these as well.
Liquids:
Water is best,
minimum one gallon a day, and herbal tea. Avoid all soda. No
coffee until you are fully recovered, if then. Fruit juices
are not recommended because of their high fructose content and
dumping of sugar into the blood stream. An occasional small
glass of vegetable juice with a meal is probably ok, BUT water
really is best.
If you enjoy wine or beer and still insist,
there are some guidelines. First, drink only with meals. Red
wine has less sugar and more of the beneficial polyphenols
than white wines. Most of the good foreign beer is actually
brewed and contains far more nutrients than the pasteurized
chemicals called beer made by the large commercial breweries
in the United States. Less is better; occasional rather than
regular. Because coffee and alcohol force you to lose water,
you’ll have to drink more water to compensate.
The most important life-giving substance in the
body is water. The daily routine of the body depends on a
turnover of about 40,000 glasses of water per day. In the
process, your body loses a minimum of 6 glasses per day, even
if you don’t do anything. With movement, exercise, and sugar
intake (that’s right), etc., you can require up to over 15
glasses of water per day. Consider this – the concentration of
water in your brain has been estimated to be 85% and the water
content of your tissues like your liver, kidney, muscle,
heart, intestines, etc. are 75% water.
We recommend drinking a MINIMUM of
half of your body weight in ounces of water. For example, a 200 pound
man would drink 100 ounces of water. I know, it may seem like
you’ll drown drinking that much, but believe me your body will
thank you!
*Information adapted from Dr.
Melvin Page’s Fundamental Diet Plan. Dr. Page based his diet
plan on the research of Drs. Price and Pottenger, who showed
the relationship of diet to health, both physical and
emotional. The diet plan was proven true when blood chemistry
panels of thousands of his patients normalized without any
other intervention. For more information regarding the Page
Food Plan and other books by Dr. Page, including Health vs.
Disease, and other works by such nutritional pioneers as Dr.
Weston Price, Dr. Francis Pottenger, and Dr. Royal Lee, please
contact: International Foundation for Nutrition and Health,
San Diego, CA. |
