My Healthy Customer.com

The news isn't that fruits and vegetables are good for you. It's that they are so good for you they could save your life. David Bjerklie, TIME Magazine, October 20, 2000

Time magazine recently reported, The news isn't that fruits and vegetables are good for you. It's that they are so good for you they could save your life. What could be so important about fruits and vegetables? The plant kingdom is filled with gifts that can help fight off the ravages of chronic disease. A large group of compounds called phytochemicals, found in plants have been shown to help fight disease by preventing the cellular damage caused by chemicals called free radicals. A diet rich in fiber also has been shown to help reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and cancer. Fiber and phytochemicals are a one-two punch that should be reason enough to eat your fruits and vegetables. We cannot be healthy by eating out of a box or a drive thru window: We must get the full spectrum of antioxidants from live, whole foods on a daily basis.

THE POWER OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES WITH WATER Subject: Water One glass of water shuts down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University study.... Lack of water is the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.... Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.... A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.... Are you drinking the amount of water you should every day? (No kidding, all of the above is true...)

With about 65 percent of Americans overweight or obese, the United States government has been motivated to make some major changes to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. For the first time since 1980, the new guidelines are emphasizing weight loss, in addition to healthy eating and cardiovascular health. (The changes are also being used to update the Food Guide Pyramid.)

The food industry has also made some alterations, offering more products with whole-grains, fewer calories and smaller portion sizes.

Though these guidelines are proposed to help Americans slim down and get on the path to a healthier lifestyle, some medical professionals question whether these guidelines will make a difference.

One critic stated, "I don't think many people read them or understand them because the government puts very little muscle into marketing them."

Conversely, others feel these changes are a move in the right direction. One doctor stated, "These guidelines are a clear step ahead of where previous ones were. The issues on weight control are more specific than in the past, specifically with exercise and the suggestions on limiting added sugars and caloric sweeteners and things like soft drinks."

Either way, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 have been set, and the government can only hope the changes will result in a thinner, healthier population.

HHS and USDA PRESS CONFERENCE
ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEW DIETARY GUIDELINES FOR AMERICANS
With Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson and
Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman
Washington D.C.
January 12, 2005

SEC. TOMMY G. THOMPSON (HHS): "Good morning, everybody. I want to welcome you all to the Humphrey Building and thank you so very much for coming to this wonderful press conference and to talk about the Dietary Guidelines for all Americans for the year 2005 and continuation thereafter.

"I'm delighted to be here with my friend and colleague Secretary Ann Veneman. We worked very well together over the past four years, and I'm just delighted that the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services teamed up together to come up with this Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

"And I also want to point out that I just think Ann Veneman has just done a terrific job as Agriculture Secretary. It's been a delight to work with her. And I thank her so very much for all that she's done, for herself, for the Department, and for this country.

"Before I begin my remarks I would like to thank some people. First off, I want to thank three groups of people. First and most important, the distinguished members of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee who worked extremely hard putting together a fine report. They completed the first stage of this process by presenting their excellent recommendations.

"Second, the members of the public, who were then offered the opportunity to express their insights over the last year and a half.

"And third, the scientists and officials of HHS and the Department of Agriculture, who translated all of this work into Dietary Guidelines that you now have in front of you. And they're easy to understand, and they're very useful for people that want to control their weight and improve the quality of their health and, therefore, the quality of their life. I also want to thank Les Crawford and Barbara Schneeman and the team at FDA. They did a wonderful job. And Barbara is here, and she did a lot of the work putting the report together, and I personally want to thank you, Barbara, and all the people at FDA.

"Cristina Beato, Dr. Beato and her team at the Office of Public Health and Science—I thank you so very much, Cristina, for all that you did in regard to making this a reality.

"Dr. Julie Gerberding, Bill Dietz, the team at CDC, as well as Elias Zerhouni, Van Hubbard and the team at NIH.

"Laura Lawlor of my office, who worked extremely hard keeping me up to date on a weekly basis as to what was going on.

"And I also want to thank our wonderful Surgeon General for his ability and capacity to get out and talk about this subject all over America.

"The timing of these dietary guidelines could not be better. After all, January is the month for New Year's resolutions. And most New Year's resolutions are about health. The one resolution I had about the Packers going to the Super Bowl did not come to fruition. The rest of them though we have an opportunity to complete and be very vigilant in working out and complying and keeping our resolutions.

"We resolved that we're going to get the medical checkups that we need, and every one of you should do that.

"And that's why the timing of these brand new guidelines could not be better and come at a better opportune time.

"The Guidelines offer Americans achievable goals for controlling weight, building stronger muscles and bones, and preventing chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.

"Nearly two-thirds of Americans — and you've heard me talk about this so often — two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. And more than 50 percent of us Americans do not get the recommended amount of physical activity— 30 minutes a day for adults and 60 minutes a day for children. And if you want to reduce weight, you should put in 60 to 90 minutes at least five times a week in order to reduce weight.

"So the 2005 Guidelines emphasize physical activity and calorie control more than ever before, and rightly so. If you want to do what is necessary to lose weight, you watch your calorie intake and you also do the necessary work, the work of physical exercise. And that requires your attention, and every one of you should do that— not only everyone in this room but everybody that's listening and watching and will be reading about these Guidelines.

"Health and nutrition impact every aspect of our lives, from how children learn to how productive small business can be to how we maintain our health and independence into our senior years; and it impacts our pocketbook with the cost of health care.

"The choices we make every day of what to eat and how much to exercise will really determine how long we live, how much energy we have, and how healthy we really are. The Dietary Guidelines give Americans the information they need to make the right choices each and every day.

"The report identifies 41 key recommendations; 23 of these are for the general public. The other 18 are for special populations such as children, women who may become pregnant, or Americans who are over the age of 50.

"Number one, Get the most nutrition out of your calories, based on the fact that there is a correct number of calories for you to eat each day. If you use up the entire amount on a few high-calorie items the chances are you will not be able to get the full range of nutrients that your body needs.

"Two, find your balance between food and physical activity. Regular physical activity, at least 30 minutes for adults, 60 minutes for children most days of the week, is important for your overall health. Physical activity also helps you control your weight.

"Make the smart choices from every food group. Eat a variety of the nutrient-packed foods to give your body the balanced nutrition that it needs. Just stay within your daily calorie needs, depending upon your body size and your daily physical activity. Mix up your food choices— variety is really the spice of life. Know what's in your packaged food by reading the nutrition facts label.

"Play it safe with food by keeping hands and food contact surfaces clean and cooking meat, poultry and fish to the temperatures that will kill the germs.

"And if you choose to drink alcohol, do so in moderation. Some people or people in certain situations should not drink at all.

"Now that we've announced the Guidelines, HHS and USDA will continue our collaboration, shifting our focus to communicating the important message of the Dietary Guidelines to all Americans. We have put out for the first time a little pamphlet, 'Finding Your Way to a Healthier You'— very easy to read, but very easy to look at and be able to assist you in making the right choices. We want to make sure that every family in America has got the opportunity to pick this up and read it and keep it in their kitchens and let their children and spouses be able to read it and refer to it.

"We can live by the 2005 Dietary Guidelines and be healthier for it because the guidelines are a solid combination of research science and, more importantly, common sense. The Dietary Guidelines are a prescription that we can write for ourselves, fill in for ourselves, and be happier and healthier for it.

"Our medicines are no farther away than the shelves of the grocery and the sidewalks so that we can use for a brisk walk. So let's each resolve to do what it says in the Dietary Guidelines, and that is the consumer brochure— feel better today 'Finding Your Way To A Healthier You.'

"Stay healthy for tomorrow. We can do this. Let's add it to our list of New Year's resolutions, and let's start today.

"Now I'd like to turn the podium over to my friend and my colleague for four years, Ann Veneman, who will continue on with this press conference."

SEC. ANN VENEMAN (USDA): "Well, good morning, and thank you very much, Secretary Thompson, for that kind introduction, for your kind words. It has been a great pleasure working with you over the past four years, and I appreciate our friendship, and I certainly commend you for the outstanding job that you've done here at HHS. We've had the opportunity to work together in partnership on many projects, and I've very much appreciated the collaboration we've had between us and between our staffs.

"I think we can all be proud of the work that both of our departments have done to protect the public health and to improve the quality of life of Americans. My thanks to everyone here at the Department of Health and Human Services and everyone from the U.S. Department of Agriculture who have worked so hard on the effort that we are announcing today.

"I'd like to add my thanks also to the members of the Scientific Advisory Committee who are integral to the process, and to Dr. Janet King who had the difficult task of chairing this committee. And finally, I'd like to add my words of thanks to everyone who took the time to get involved in the process.

"New versions of the Dietary Guidelines, as you know, are released every five years. The process that was used to develop these guidelines was more rigorous, more science-based, and more transparent than ever before. The new guidelines highlight the principle that Americans should keep their weight within healthful limits and engage in ample physical activity.

"Taken together, recommendations will help consumers make smart choices from every food group, get the most nutrition out of the calories consumed, and find balance between eating and physical activity.

"Because we are committed to using the very best science, we as others have done before convened an advisory panel of independent, nationally recognized experts to review vast amounts of research. But this was the first time we used an evidence-based approach to reviewing research for the update, resulting in recommendations that are being made on a preponderance of research.

"The Committee held five public meetings so that everyone could participate and understand the research, as well as the process. Oral and written comments were solicited from the public at several steps along the way, all of which were made public on the Internet.

"The Panel summarized its findings and recommendations into a scientific report that was released to USDA, HHS, and the public in August of 2004. That's this report, Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005.

"This report was then summarized into a draft of the Dietary Guidelines, and then that document was submitted to a peer-review group for a review by federal scientists.

"So that's the process that resulted in the document that we are releasing today.

"The new Dietary Guidelines are part of the ongoing effort to help Americans adopt and keep healthier lifestyles and to address the epidemic of overweight and obesity that is affecting so many, especially our nation's children. The federal government is committed to helping fight this epidemic and encouraging and helping Americans to adopt long-lasting, healthy lifestyles.

"The Dietary Guidelines are an important tool in that fight. They provide a blueprint for action, a blueprint based on the latest and best science available. With the new Guidelines as a basis, USDA will update nutrition assistance and education programs to help provide nutritious foods to those who are in need and to teach about healthier lifestyles.

"USDA provides about one-half billion dollars a year in nutrition education through the critical channels of our Food Assistance Programs, programs such as School Meals, School Lunch, School Breakfast, Food Stamps-- and the Women, Infants and Children or what's commonly referred to as the WIC program. Those programs and many others will reflect these new recommendations.

"But there are few opportunities to make a more significant impact on healthy eating choices than School Meals, particularly for those at a young age. On a typical day some 29 million students across the country eat a balanced school lunch, and about 9 million children participate in the School Breakfast program. The content of those meals is based on the Dietary Guidelines, and the scientific basis of the new guidelines can provide parents with assurances that their children are receiving healthful meals at school.

"The Dietary Guidelines will also be the basis for the new Food Guidance System, which presents nutrition information in an easy-to-use consumer-friendly form. Now, the current Food Guidance System is what we know as the Food Guide Pyramid. And that's probably what is most familiar to all of you. Together, the Dietary Guidelines and the Food Guidance System will support our actions and programs and serve as a resource for Americans.

"The fight against obesity and for healthy, more active lifestyles will take a concerted effort— from the federal government to health experts to the food and agriculture sectors to business leaders, state and local governments, scientists and researchers, and teachers and parents. The Dietary Guidelines are a vital resource for a healthier, stronger nation.

"The popularity of diet books and products which represent about a $42 billion in annual spending in the United States shows that Americans are interested in leading healthier lives. But they want credible, consistent and coherent information to help them make the best possible choices.

"The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans will provide a solid foundation to support a healthier population for years to come.

SEC. THOMPSON: "We'll take questions now from the press. Barbara, do you want to come up here? Who's the person from USDA? Eric Hentges."

QUESTION: "Can you sort of compare and contrast today's Guidelines, the ones you're issuing today, with the original 'Food Pyramid' we're also familiar with?"

QUESTION: "I'm just saying, is this one — what did the Food Pyramid stress when it was initially issued? And what do your Guidelines today stress? What — can you compare and contrast those two?"

SEC. VENEMAN: "Well, the Food Pyramid is the Food Guidance System which I talked about at the end of my remarks. And we are in the process of developing a new Food Guidance System. Whether or not it takes the shape and form of a pyramid again is still being looked at. We're looking at a variety of ways to look at the Food Guidance.

"But the Food Guidance in the form of the pyramid was based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. So what we've announced today is an updated guideline of Dietary Guidelines that have additional science incorporated into those. But you know, many of the recommendations are not significantly different than what's been recommended in the past — whether it's eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk and dairy products and lower-fat protein sources.

"I think that all of these have been pretty consistent messages. I think the Dietary Guidelines that we are releasing today have incorporated the best available science that we have to date."

QUESTION: "Thank you. The former, the Scientific Advisory Committee— I see that you integrated most of their recommendations. But there is one recommendation I was looking for that I didn't see. Perhaps I missed it. And that was for an increase in omega 3 fatty acids, high in fish and vegetarian sources such as flax and walnuts. And I was wondering if that is in the new guidelines."

BARBARA SCHNEEMAN: "I can comment on that, that if you look in the section on Fats, there is in fact a key recommendation. Several of the key recommendations talk about the amount of fat that's appropriate to have in the diet, and it recommends that most fat in the diet should come from sources of polyunsaturated and mono-unsaturated fatty acids such as fish, nuts and vegetable oils. And then in the document itself, in the discussion, it talks about the contribution that fish can make to intake of the long- chain omega 3 fatty acids. So it is part of the Fat section."

SEC. THOMPSON: "And also it's in the little pamphlet as well, so you've got it right there so you can look at it.

QUESTION: "Secretary Thompson, I'm Tom [inaudible]. I understand there's a periodic review, an update you do, but I'm also curious — given the current concern about the rising rate of obesity—"

SEC. THOMPSON: "Yes. So am I, as you know, and Ann is as well. You know, people with the first name of Tom have an ability —"

QUESTION: "There's a kinship already. Given that concern, I'm curious if your staffs and you felt more of a sense of urgency about this if there is a sense in the Department that the message over the last five, 10, 15 years hasn't gotten out, that you haven't done enough, that what has been the feeling and what's the sense of urgency to get this problem corrected?"

SEC. THOMPSON: "Well, first off, Tom, let me just thank you for the question and tell you that there's no question that we have to do more. And that's why Secretary Veneman and myself have teamed up for four years talking about good diets. We had a couple press conferences dealing with fruits and vegetables, and we've been on several press conferences in which we've talked to people, talked to the groups that we were addressing about the need to eat properly and to exercise.

"And you know it's been one of my causes over here in this Department. I put everybody in the Department on a diet. I hand out these pedometers, and you should have one. How many of you are carrying your pedometers here today? And every single one of you should have one and be addressing how much you walk and exercise each day.

"This particular pamphlet really puts the emphasis on calorie intake and calorie consumption as well as calorie, the uses— and makes sure that people learn how to control their weight. It's common sense, and that's why it is so important. It's scientific-based, but there's a great deal of common sense in it.

"And both Secretary Veneman and myself want to make sure that we get as much opportunity to talk to the American people about the need to control your weight. We have a real problem of people that are obese and overweight in this country. And we all have to do a better job of controlling our own individual weights and also being able to do what we possibly can to get this message out across America.

"I do think that we have had a tremendous positive result in the last four years of bringing this to the forefront, much more so than ever before. We've been talking about prevention rather than curative diseases. We've been talking about prevention as far as eating and exercising.

"We've gotten a lot of food companies— I just, and the person from the food section from the Washington Post was talking about food companies that are addressing this. A lot of the cereal companies that come out, talking now about producing their cereals with less sugar. Kraft Foods is also putting out a lot fewer items that have high-fat content. Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola are addressing this. A lot of companies are.

"So we are having an impact. I don't know if we've reached the tipping point where everybody now is going to start addressing it, but I think we are close to it if we haven't reached that."

QUESTION: "I'm Susan Denser (sp) from the News Hour with PBS. For both of you, the Advisory Committee was rather specific on the subject of trans-fat intake in suggesting no more than two grams a day, which would have been eclipsed by eating your average package of McDonald's french fries. Yet it looks as if from the recommendations that there are no specific amounts being stipulated as to maximum intake of trans fats.

"Can you explain why there was not a specific recommendation on levels of trans fats, and what in fact is the recommendation?

SEC. THOMPSON: "Well, Susan, first off, you know, FDA for the first time has required trans fats to be placed upon labels. First time ever. And it's the first indication that trans fats have been taken as a responsibility of this Department and FDA.

"Secondly, FDA is currently reviewing what the recommendation is in regards to trans fats. The recommendation in this pamphlet is the same as what has been put out by the Institute of Medicine. And we're also looking at FDA to make a further recommendation that may say that it should be less than two, maybe only one. And that recommendation is coming.

And I'll tell you, these guidelines are not static. They're evolving. This is the benchmark as of right now, and it's really a very good benchmark. But FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services along with Department of Agriculture and Trade and Consumer Affairs is going to be looking at how we can continue to improve it and update it. And that's what FDA is doing with trans fats right now, Susan.

"And that's why it was less general, just because that particular recommendation will be forthcoming in the future."

QUESTION: "So for the time being the recommendation vis a vis trans fats would be what specifically?"

SEC. THOMPSON: "Well, right now there'd be, look at the label. And two is probably the upper limit that you should have as a consumer. Look for further information to come from FDA and the Department of Agriculture in the foreseeable future."

BARBARA SCHNEEMAN: "The specific recommendation is that trans fat intake should be as low as possible. And the Guidelines also, the full document also points to the fact that it's important for consumers to pay attention to saturated fat, trans-fat and cholesterol, that it's not trans-fat by itself but all three of these should be watched for by consumers and tried to be kept as low as possible."

QUESTION: "Val Willingham from CNN. Just to follow up, you have all these guidelines. I spoke to someone with the American Dietetic Association. They said these are extremely positive guidelines; they're going in the absolute right direction. But how do you make the American public follow them? I mean, that's really truly — I mean, how do you do it?"

SEC. VENEMAN: "You know, I think we all have our ideas on that. I think there's a couple of things to point out. One is, what I said in the end of my speech, about more and more Americans are really looking at what is it we need to do to control our weight? I mean, all of these diets have become wildly popular and become best sellers. Clearly, people are reaching out for information.

"Have we been successful in the past? I mean, certainly we've had these Food Guidance Systems, the pyramid, we've had these recommendations, we've had Dietary Guidelines. And yet we still see increasing overweight and obesity in this country. I think that really goes to the heart of your question.

"But I do believe that people are looking more and more at what it takes to live a healthy lifestyle. I think people have gotten the message that people need to take personal responsibility for what they do.

"And hopefully we can find ways to get this information— with the help of many of you because the media's been playing a very, very key role in writing about the issue of overweight and obesity and I think now giving the public good, solid information on what's contained in the Dietary Guidelines; helping people understand it from a layperson's perspective, not having it too complicated, and getting the information as broad and far-released as we possibly can and understood by as many populations— in the classrooms, for example, because we know children's habits that are developed early on carry out through the rest of their life.

"So I think all of us in this room have a role to play in making sure people understand what is needed for healthy living."

SEC. THOMPSON: "Let's face it, every American is looking for NIH to come up with that pill."

SEC. THOMPSON: "It's not going to happen! It's not going to happen. If you want — and you know, it's really common sense. Do you want to look better? Yes. Do you want to feel better? Yes. If you do that, you lower your calorie intake, you lower your fats, your carbs, you eat more fruits and vegetables, more whole grain, and you exercise. And that's as simple as it can be."

QUESTION: "I know it's not too hard, but for many people—"

SEC. THOMPSON: "It is not. [audience laughter] You can get up tonight. Tonight. Everybody in this room only ate half the dessert and then go out and walk around the block, and if you're going to watch television get down and do 10 pushups and five sit-ups. And you know something? You will feel better; in a little while you'll be able to do 20.

"And that's all it takes. It takes some personal, you know, personal intuition and initiative to get the job done. There's not the pill. There's not going to be a pill. So let's face it America and that's why I think people as Ann has said, go correctly.

"There is more information out there. But it always comes back to you eat your fruits and vegetables, watch your calorie intake, and exercise. Lower your intake of fats and sugars and salt and increase in vitamins and vegetables and you will be healthier and happier and better looking. And if you lose weight, if you lose weight [audience laughter] — if you lose weight, ladies and gentlemen, it takes less time to shave in the morning. [audience laughter] I can attest to it. So please do it. Save time.

QUESTION: "Hi. I'm Jennifer Barns from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. If I may just ask a really important question about food health, and that is food safety. Secretary Veneman, how does the discovery of a third mad cow in Canada, how will that affect the process of reopening the U.S. border to Canadian live cattle?"

SEC. VENEMAN: "Well, as you know it was announced by the Canadian government yesterday that they did find another positive case of BSE in Canada in the same area in Alberta where the other cases in Canada have been found. And we put out a statement yesterday, which is basically all I can repeat today, and that is we are going to send a team to Canada to help with the investigation. The Canadian authorities have been very cooperative, and we will continue to investigate this process and determine if there's any different actions that need to be taken. But at this point everything that we've put in place remains on track.

"Now let me just say that it is important whenever we talk about this issue to remember that we took very aggressive actions with regard to our meat supply. We remove what's called Specified Risk Materials, the materials that could make a difference in terms of public health. And so I just want to reiterate that in terms of public health we believe that this situation does not change anything with regard to the safety of the food supply in this country or even in Canada."

QUESTION: "Can you give us some specifics on how the guidelines might be translated into the School Lunch Program? For example, there's an emphasis on skim or nonfat milk; and yet it's been a source of contention for years that whole milk continues to be sold in cafeterias. Is that going to come out now because of these guidelines?

SEC. VENEMAN: "There have been in the past some schools that have served only whole milk products, but more and more schools today, I think virtually all of them, are offering choices to students. And you know, you see and I've spent a lot of my time in the last year and last couple years actually, visiting school lunch programs and looking at the schools where healthy choices are being offered.

"And it certainly makes a difference in terms of the students and their fitness levels and so forth. But one of the things that has become more of a hallmark in schools today is offering nonfat and low-fat milk choices. And certainly that would be encouraged under the Dietary Guidelines."

"How big of a hurdle is cost to Americans, particularly low-income Americans, eating healthfully and following the guidelines?"

SEC. THOMPSON: "Oh, I think cost is not a determiner of whether or not you eat properly. I mean, there's fruits and vegetables are out there, a lot of inexpensive foods that can be extremely healthy. You know, you have to watch your diet. A lot of the high fats and high carbs are quite expensive. And I think there's a lot that you can do with a budget from a low-income person that can be very healthy. And you just have to shop around. You have to look at the labels, and all of us can do that. But it should not be a determining factor as to whether or not you're going to be healthy and eat properly because you're going to spend a lot more money if you don't eat healthy, in medical costs.

"And so really this is — and food costs are relatively low in America. And so I don't think anybody— and with all the Food Stamp programs that's put out by Agriculture and other things, low income individuals should be able to have a very balanced diet."

SEC. VENEMAN: "I might add too that I think it's very important to recognize that consumers today are not only driven by price but convenience. And to some extent many of the high calorie foods have been also convenience foods. What we've been seeing is a radical shift in the past few years in terms of making some of the healthier choices more consumer-friendly from the convenience standpoint.

"Think about baby carrots in bags or salads in bags or all of the healthy kinds of choices, the announcement that Kraft just made this week saying that they're going to actually label foods that meet certain criteria for making a healthy choice.

"So I think a lot of it is not just cost but also convenience, and the response has been improving in terms of how consumers are being given better convenience choices as well as the foods that are nutritious for you."

ERIC HENTGES (USDA): "Specific to some of the food assistance programs that do reach one in five Americans, we will be updating the Thrifty Food Plan. And this is the basis upon which many of these programs— the Food Stamps, the Food Assistance programs— are based. And we will be looking specifically at that cost and be going through that. So that is already started and will be part of the implementation for those specific populations where cost does affect the health."

"Can you all talk a little bit about how much room is there in the Guidelines for people who are wanting to do the more popular diets, low-carb diets like Atkins and South Beach?"

"You know, one of the things, people say, ‘oh this diet allows you to only eat these foods, or this diet only allows you to eat these foods’. But if you really look at so many of these diets, whether it's Atkins or South Beach or a variety of diets, if you go further than just the first two weeks and look at the maintenance programs that they have in many of these programs, they're very consistent in many ways with the Dietary Guidelines: ‘eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, eat whole grains, keep fat low.’ And more and more you see these very consistent messages coming also out of a lot of the popular diet programs.

"And I think — you know, the consumer is searching for the answer. As Secretary Thompson said, it's not in a pill. It's in how you make your food choices and how you exercise. And that's the key question."

SEC. THOMPSON: "We don't want to in any way disparage or criticize or in any way take away from all the diet programs out there because every one of those programs serve some people and serve a need. But if you want to get by without joining an organization, follow this diet.

"This is probably the best diet out there. And if you follow this diet, you're going to lose weight, you're going to be healthy, and you're going to be able to improve quality of life. And that's what needs to be done. It's common sense. And I don't know how many more times we have to say it. It's scientifically based, but it's also common sense, and it's up to the individual to make the right decisions. And if they make the right decisions, they will lead and live a very healthy and a quality of life."

"Could you please address the question of sodium? The report says 2300 milligrams a day. Most Americans as you know consume sodium from processed food. So how do you plan to work with the food industry to help lower intake of sodium?"

SEC. THOMPSON: "It was lowered from 2400 to 2300. It's about a teaspoonful of salt, and it's in processed food. What we're trying to do is to not only notify the consumer, we're also notifying through these guidelines the food industry across America. And we're hoping through their research and their production of foods that they will take into consideration the sugars and the fats and the salt. And we're hopeful that these guidelines will be an opportunity for not only the individual to watch their salt intake but also the companies. And both of those are important if we're going to realize our goal, and that is to keep Americans healthier and be able to slim down in this country.

BARBARA SCHNEEMAN: "I would just like to add the emphasis that I think is a new part of the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, to put more focus on potassium and the importance of meeting potassium recommendations as another way to help Americans prevent hypertension or help manage their blood pressure."

"One, on the language on added sugar, there is much concern with the food industry about what you were going to say. Could you say how you think that language is going to affect their products, if at all?

"Number two, it appears to me that you switched from using servings to talking about recommendations for cups of fruits and vegetables and ounces of whole grains and so forth. Could you talk about why you all have changed that language?"

SEC. VENEMAN: "Well, on the sugars, I think what it specifically says is, you should limit your intake of sugars and fat and salt as Secretary Thompson said. So there's clearly a recognition to limit your intake of sugar.

"And maybe Barbara or Eric wants to add on exactly what has been said in that regard."

ERIC HENTGES: "The recommendations on carbohydrates are in two parts, and you will see a specific recommendation on increasing fiber. Then you will see a carbohydrate recommendation upon the appropriateness of limiting your calories, especially calories from sugar and solid fats and alcohol that are not bringing other nutrients. So that is one of the specific recommendations.

"On your questions about cups and ounces, as we look at the implementation, as Secretary Veneman said, we're going to revise the current Food Guide Pyramid, the Food Guide System. Our input from the Federal Register comments has said that, as most of you know, that the servings and portions are confusing. This is an area where consumers are not sure what is going on between what a serving is and this portion.

"And so household measures of cups, ounces and others seem to be the better communication tool. And that is where we are headed relative to that portion control."

SEC. THOMPSON: "And you also have to realize that FDA, we made an announcement some time ago that FDA was going to go through their whole labeling process to make sure that the labels are much more easy to understand and be able to be much more descriptive as to what a person should be taking. And that's coming, and we're updating the FDA rules and regulations as it relates to labeling to make it a much better guide for the consumer."

QUESTION: "I'm Stephanie Woods with Nightly Business Report. A two-part question.

"What impact do you think these Guidelines are going to have on the food industry?

"And should there be some limits on the advertising to children, particularly of very sugary cereals like candy for breakfast?"

SEC. THOMPSON: "I think it's going to have a great impact on the food industry. The food industry has spent a great deal of time and money appearing and observing all of the negotiations and all of the testimonies that went into compiling the Guidelines. They're very attuned to what's going on across America. And the more that we talk about it in the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services the more the food industry is standing up and taking notice of what's taking place.

"The more that you report about it, the more that they hear or see it on television or on the radio, the more the food industry is going to start responding. The more that Americans are talking about having things that are better for them, healthier for them —

"I can only — I've talked to a lot of the food companies. They come in and meet with me as they do with Secretary Veneman, on a regular basis. And they're very cognizant of the need to lower the calories, to lower the sugar, lower the sizes and so on. And so I think we're having an impact with the food industry. And I think this is going to be helpful.

"In regards to advertising, we have a Constitution that prohibits the limit of speech, and we in this Administration believe very strongly that people should have the opportunity to advertise. And we're not going to in any way curtail the right to express people's opinions. But we think we have to do a better job, more aggressively, you know, to tell the other side.

"We've only got time for a couple more questions. Secretary Veneman and I have got to go to another meeting."

"I wonder if you could further explain what you put in the Dietary Guidelines about sugar because I note further on that you say that 'available prospective studies show a positive association between the consumption of calorically sweetened beverages and weight gains '... and go on to say 'For this reason there should be decreased intake of sugars.'

"And in almost every instance except trans-fatty acids you have put a specific figure on the level that food should be consumed at. And even on sodium, even though there are people who think that should be much less sodium. Why didn't you put a specific level on sugars, added sugars?"

BARBARA SCHNEEMAN: "Actually if you — I know you've just seen this now, but one of the concepts that the Dietary Guidelines 2005 talks about are discretionary calories. And if you look in the appendix, I think it's Appendix A3 on Page 55 — it actually gives some examples at different calorie levels; that once a person has consumed enough calories to meet their nutrient needs, how many discretionary calories do they still have left in that food pattern, and thus what does that translate into in terms of added sugars or added fats?

"Likewise, in the description of the DASH eating guide, it also gives information on what might be an appropriate amount of sweets that could be a part of a healthful diet and still meet the nutrient requirements that are recommended for healthful eating.

"So we didn't come up with some specific number, but I think we do provide throughout the document illustrations of how a person who is planning a healthful diet, how they should think about those discretionary calories."

QUESTION: "Is that also in the small little booklet, what you're talking about right now?"

BARBARA SCHNEEMAN: "The small booklet really is much more targeted toward consumer outreach. We would describe this small booklet as the first step in an ongoing process to educate consumers about the variety of messages that are in the Dietary Guidelines. So the full report is available to everyone there on the web."

QUESTION: "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be argumentative about this, but the question really wasn't answered. Why wasn't it in the list of the recommendations?"

BARBARA SCHNEEMAN: "We have very specific key recommendations about sugar, and we have information —"

QUESTION: "But they're not. I don't see them in the specific recommendations. I'm sorry. I only got, I had 15 minutes in which to read this. So I may have missed it."

BARBARA SCHNEEMAN: "Let me just read for you the key recommendation that is a part of the recommendation on carbohydrates. The first one is, 'Choose fiber-rich fruits, vegetables and whole grains often.' As Dr. Hentges mentioned.

"The second one is, 'Choose and prepare foods and beverages with little added sugars or caloric sweeteners, such as the amounts that have been suggested by the USDA Food Guide and the DASH eating plan. You can find that on Page 36 in the document."

In the past there has been a lot of talk about critics about how these Guidelines, and particularly the Food Pyramid, are influenced by industry. And both of you have made a key point of saying this is scientifically based what we've come up with today.

"And yet there have been some questions from others raised about why specific limits weren't put on sugars, trans-fats, things like that. How much do you think industry did have influence over this document? What would you say compared to, say, past documents? Is this truly scientifically based, or were there compromises made so that industry wasn't concerned about what you came out with?"

SEC. THOMPSON: "It's scientifically based. Every report that comes through the federal government has compromises put in. You have a bunch of scientists on a commission, and they were vetted, they were outstanding individuals, they worked extremely hard. But I'm sure they come, you know, with their own personal likes and dislikes, their own scientific research. And there's got to be some give and take in order to come up with a report.

"As far as the influence of outside interests in regards to corporate interests, I think very little. I think the public had a lot to do with how this particular report was finally compiled and completed, and I'm very satisfied with it.

"I think when you look at it, you know, no matter how you want to point at it, how you want to criticize it, how you want to compliment it — the truth of the matter is, it's up to the individual. You're going to have to watch what you eat, and you're going to have to exercise. That's what this report says.

"And I don't know if ABC had a big impact or CBS or CNN or Fox, but I can tell you it's scientifically based and it's also based upon common sense.

"Thank you very much, all of you, for coming. Eat properly and exercise and get your pedometers."

Here’s how: The food and physical activity choices you make every day affect your health—how you feel today, tomorrow, and in the future. The science-based advice of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans,2005 in this booklet highlights how to: • Make smart choices from every food group.• Find your balance between food and physical activity. • Get the most nutrition out of your calories.You may be eating plenty of food, but not eating the right foods that give your body the nutrients you need to be healthy. You may not be getting enough physical activity to stay fit and burn those extra calories. This booklet is a starting point for finding your way to a healthier you. Eating right and being physically active aren’t just a “diet” or a “program”—they are keys to a healthy lifestyle. With healthful habits, you may reduce your risk of many chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and certain cancers, and increase your chances for a longer life. The sooner you start, the better for you, your family, and your future. Find more specific information at www.healthierus.gov/dietaryguidelines.

Make smart choices from every food group. The best way to give your body the balanced nutrition it needs is by eating a variety of nutrient-packed foods every day. Just be sure to stay within your daily calorie needs. A healthy eating plan is one that: • Emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products. • Includes lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts. • Is low in saturated fats,transfats, cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars. DON’T GIVE IN WHEN YOU EAT OUT AND ARE ON THE GO It’s important to make smart food choices and watch portion sizes wherever you are—at the grocery store, at work, in your favorite restaurant, or running errands. Try these tips: • At the store, plan ahead by buying a variety of nutrient-rich foods for meals and snacks throughout the week. • When grabbing lunch, have a sandwich on whole-grain bread and choose low-fat/fat-free milk, water, or other drinks without added sugars. • In a restaurant, opt for steamed, grilled, or broiled dishes instead of those that are fried or sautéed. • On a long commute or shopping trip, pack some fresh fruit, cut-up vegetables, string cheese sticks, or a handful of unsalted nuts—to help you avoid impulsive, less healthful snack choices.

Focus on fruits. Eat a variety of fruits—whether fresh, frozen, canned, or dried—rather than fruit juice for most of your fruit choices. For a 2,000- calorie diet, you will need 2 cups of fruit each day (for example, 1 small banana, 1 large orange, and 1/4 cup of dried apricots or peaches).

Make half your grains whole. Eat at least 3 ounces of whole-grain cereals, breads, crackers, rice, or pasta every day. One ounce is about 1 slice of bread, 1 cup of breakfast cereal, or 1/2 cup of cooked rice or pasta. Look to see that grains such as wheat, rice, oats, or corn are referred to as “whole” in the list of ingredients.

Go lean with protein. Choose lean meats and poultry. Bake it, broil it, or grill it. And vary your protein choices—with more fish, beans, peas, nuts, and seeds.

Get your calcium-rich foods. Get 3 cups of lowfat or fat-free milk—or an equivalent amount of low-fat yogurt and/or low-fat cheese (11/2 ounces of cheese equals 1 cup of milk)—every day. For kids aged 2 to 8, it’s 2 cups of milk. If you don’t or can’t consume milk, choose lactose-free milk products and/or calcium-fortified foods and beverages.

Find your balance between food and physical activity. Becoming a healthier you isn’t just about eatinghealthy—it’s also about physical activity. Regularphysical activity is important for your overall healthand fitness. It also helps you control body weight bybalancing the calories you take in as food with thecalories you expend each day. • Be physically active for at least 30 minutes most daysof the week. • Increasing the intensity or the amount of time thatyou are physically active can have even greaterhealth benefits and may be needed to control bodyweight. About 60 minutes a day may be needed toprevent weight gain. • Children and teenagers should be physically activefor 60 minutes every day,or most every day. CONSIDERTHIS:If you eat 100 more food calories a day than you burn,you’ll gain about 1 pound in a month. That’s about 10pounds in a year. The bottom line is that to lose weight,it’s important to reduce calories and increase physicalactivity.

Get the most nutrition out of your calories. There is a right number of calories for you to eat each day. This number depends on your age, activity level, and whether you’re trying to gain, maintain, or lose weight.* You could use up the entire amount on a few high-calorie items, but chances are you won’t get the full range of vitamins and nutrients your body needs to be healthy. Choose the most nutritionally rich foods you can from each food group each day—those packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other nutrients but lower in calories. Pick foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products more often. * 2,000 calories is the value used as a general reference on the food label. But you can calculate your number at www.healthierus.gov/dietaryguidelines.

Most packaged foods have a Nutrition Facts label. For a healthier you, use this tool to make smart food choices quickly and easily. Try these tips: •Keep these low: saturated fats,transfats, cholesterol, and sodium. • Get enough of these: potassium, fiber, vitamins A and C, calcium, and iron. • Use the % Daily Value (DV) column when possible: 5% DV or less is low, 20% DV or more is high. Check servings and calories. Look at the serving size and how many servings you are actually consuming. If you double the servings you eat, you double the calories and nutrients, including the % DVs. Make your calories count. Look at the calories on the label and compare them with what nutrients you are also getting to decide whether the food is worth eating. When one serving of a single food item has over 400 calories per serving, it is high in calories. Don’t sugarcoat it. Since sugars contribute calories with few, if any, nutrients, look for foods and beverages low in added sugars. Read the ingredient list and make sure that added sugars are not one of the first few ingredients. Some names for added sugars (caloric sweeteners) include sucrose, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, maple syrup, and fructose. Know your fats. Look for foods low in saturated fats,transfats, and cholesterol to help reduce the risk of heart disease (5% DV or less is low, 20% DV or more is high). Most of the fats you eat should be polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. Keep total fat intake between 20% to 35% of calories. Reduce sodium (salt), increase potassium. Research shows that eating less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium (about 1 tsp of salt) per day may reduce the risk of high blood pressure. Most of the sodium people eat comes from processed foods, not from the saltshaker. Also look for foods high in potassium, which counteracts some of sodium’s effects on blood pressure. …use the label. Start hereCheck caloriesQuick guide to % DV5% or less is low20% or more is highLimit these Get enough of these Footnote

Know how to prepare, handle, and store food safely to keep you and your family safe: • Clean hands, food-contact surfaces, fruits, and vegetables. To avoid spreading bacteria to other foods, meat and poultry should not be washed or rinsed. • Separate raw, cooked, and ready-to-eat foods while shopping, preparing, or storing. • Cook meat, poultry, and fish to safe internal temperatures to kill microorganisms. • Chill perishable foods promptly and thaw foods properly. 180°F Whole poultryPoultry breastsStuffing, ground poultry, reheat leftoversMeats (medium), egg dishes, pork, and ground meatsBeef steaks, roasts, veal, lamb(medium rare)Hold hot foodsRefrigerator temperaturesFreezer temperatures170°F165°F160°F145°F140°F40°F0°F DANGER ZONE

About alcohol. If you choose to drink alcohol, do so in moderation. Moderate drinking means up to 1 drink a day for women and up to 2 drinks for men. Twelve ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 11/2 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits count as a drink for purposes of explaining moderation. Remember that alcoholic beverages have calories but are low in nutritional value. Generally, anything more than moderate drinking can be harmful to your health. And some people, or people in certain situations, shouldn’t drink at all. If you have questions or concerns, talk to your doctor or healthcare provider.

This booklet, as well as Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2005, 6th Edition, may be viewed and downloaded from the Internet at www.healthierus.gov/dietaryguidelines. To purchase single printed copies of this booklet, call the Federal Citizen Information Center toll-free at (888) 878-3256.

To purchase bulk copies, 100 copies per pack (Stock Number 001-000-04718-3), call the U.S. Government Printing Office toll-free at (866) 512-1800, or access the GPO Online Bookstore at http://bookstore.gpo.gov. To purchase printed copies of the complete 80-page Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2005 (Stock Number 001-000-04719-1), call the U.S. Government Printing Office at (866) 512-1800, or access the GPO Online Bookstore at http://bookstore.gpo.gov. The U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) prohibit discrimination in their programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, or marital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD). To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten Building, 14th and Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (202) 720-5964 (voice and TDD). USDA and HHS are equal opportunity providers and employers. HHS Publication number: HHS-ODPHP-2005-01-DGA-B USDA Publication number: Home and Garden Bulletin No. 232-CPdded sugars (caloric sweeteners).

In 1998, I first stumbled on official data showing a sharp decline in the nation’s food quality while updating nutrition charts for a new edition of one of my books. I soon discovered that the USDA no longer published nutrient data in book form, but posted it on the Internet (www.nat.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_s.pl). Not only could new information be made available instantaneously, but it could also be freely accessed in seconds. “Great!” I thought. “This will really simplify my life.” But as I updated vitamin and mineral charts that I’d compiled fifteen years earlier, I realized that many of the nutrients had declined. “What’s going on here?” I wondered, dimly glimpsing the research headache that would ensue. In an experiment, I jotted down twelve common garden vegetables at random and discovered that on average their vitamin and mineral had declined 25 to 50% across the board since the last published edition of the food composition tables in 1975 (including data going back to 1963 and earlier). Alarmed, I called the USDA and was put in touch with Dr. David Haytowitz, the official in charge of the vegetable sector. Like the State Department with its China desk, a Middle Eastern desk, and other divisions that monitor specific regions, the USDA has experts at the Nutrient Data Laboratory in Maryland in charge of every possible food group. Dr. Haytowitz also turned out to be the web master, so he was familiar with the entire database of over 5000 foods beside his own specialty. “Are you aware that the nutrients in the American food supply appear to have declined sharply from a generation ago?” I asked. “This is the first time I’ve heard of it,” he replied nonchalantly. “Isn’t the USDA concerned that the food the American people are eating every day is losing its energy and vitality?” I asked. “The USDA doesn’t monitor or analyze trends,” he explained. “We only gather data.” I felt like a waif in a novel by Charles Dickens populated by bureaucrats and government functionaries who compile a mountain of data about the abject conditions around them, but do nothing to avert the impending catastrophe. “Could the decline be due to a change in testing procedures over the last several decades?” I inquired. We had a lengthy discussion about new improved testing techniques, including colorimetry, atomic absorption, and inductive coupled plasma (ICP). The scientist was clearly in his element describing how researchers use ever more sophisticated methods to reduce piles of food to ash in their laboratories and calculate grams of edible portion to three decimal places. However, the bottom line was that new methods would probably not result in changes of this magnitude, but only to several further decimal points. I ventured that the decline might be the result of the environmental crisis, especially increased use of pesticides and chemicals on America’s farms. Dr. Haytowitz replied that, on the contrary, farmers a generation ago probably used more chemical fertilizers, soil supplements, and other additives than they do now, artificially elevating nutrient levels compared to more normal samples today! “Has the USDA tested organic food compared to chemically grown food to measure such changes?” I asked in reply to this Alice-in-Wonderland reasoning. “No, such tests have not been performed,” he admitted. “The USDA presumes that the nutrient content of organic and conventionally grown food is substantially equivalent.” “And on what scientific research studies have you based that assumption?” I replied, leaving him temporarily speechless.

Table 1. Calcium Content in Selected Fruits* 1975 2001 Net ChangeApples 7 mg 7 mg NoneApricots 17 mg 14 mg Down 17.7%Bananas 8 mg 6 mg Down 25%Cherries 22 mg 15 mg Down 31.8%Grapefruits 16 mg 12 mg Down 25%Lemons 61 mg 26 mg Down 57.4%Oranges 41 mg 40 mg Down 2.4%Peaches 9 mg 5 mg Down 44.4%Pineapples 17 mg 7 mg Down 58.8%Strawberries 21 mg 14 mg Down 33.3%Tangerines 40 mg 14 mg Down 65%Watermelons 7 mg 8 mg Up 14.3%Net Change Down 28.9%*Based on 100 Grams, Edible Portion. Source: USDA food composition tables

Table 2. Iron Content in Selected Fruits* 1975 2001 Net ChangeApples 0.3 mg 0.18 mg Down 40%Apricots 0.5 mg 0.54 mg Up 8%Bananas 0.7 mg 0.31 mg Down 55.7%Cherries 0.4 mg 0.39 mg Down 2.5%Grapefruits 0.4 mg 0.06 mg Down 85%Lemons 0.7 mg 0.6 mg Down 14.3%Oranges 0.4 mg 0.10 mg Down 75%Peaches 0.5 mg 0.11 mg Down 78%Pineapples 0.5 mg 0.37 mg Down 26%Strawberries 1.0 mg 0.38 mg Down 62%Tangerines 0.4 mg 0.1 mg Down 75%Watermelons 0.5 mg 0.17 mg Down 66%Net Change Down 16.4%*Based on 100 Grams, Edible Portion. Source: USDA food composition tables

Table 3. Vitamin A Content in Selected Fruits* 1975 2001 Net ChangeApples 90 IU 53 IU Down 41.1%Apricots 2700 IU 2612IU Down 3.3%Bananas 190 IU 81 IU Down 57.4%Cherries 110 IU 214 IU Up 94.6%Grapefruits 80 IU 10 IU Down 87.5%Lemons 30 IU 29 IU Downs 3.3%Oranges 200 IU 205 IU Up 2.5%Peaches 1330 IU 535 IU Down 59.8%Pineapples 70 IU 23 IU Down 55%Strawberries 60 IU 27 IU Down 67.1%Tangerines 420 IU 920 IU Up 119%Watermelons 590 IU 366 IU Down 38%Net Change Down 16.4%*Based on 100 Grams, Edible Portion. Source: USDA food composition tables

Table 4. Vitamin C Content in Selected Fruits* 1975 2001 Net ChangeApples 4 mg 5.7 mg Up 42.5%Apricots 10 mg 10 mg NoneBananas 10 mg 9.1 mg Down 9%Cherries 10 mg 7 mg Down 30%Grapefruits 38 mg 33.3 mg Down 12.4%Lemons 77 mg 53 mg Down 31.2%Oranges 50 mg 53.2 mg Up 6.4%Peaches 7 mg 6.6 mg Down 5.7%Pineapples 17 mg 15.4 mg Down 9.4%Strawberries 59 mg 56.7 mg Down 3.9%Tangerines 31 mg 30.8 mg Down 7%Watermelons 7 mg 9.6 Up 37.1%Net Change Down 1.9%*Based on 100 Grams, Edible Portion. Source: USDA food composition tables

Table 5. Phosphorus Content in Selected Fruits* 1975 2001 Net ChangeApples 10 mg 7 mg Down 30%Apricots 23 mg 19 mg Down 17.4%Bananas 42 mg 20 mg Down 52.4%Cherries 19 mg 19 mg NoneGrapefruits 16 mg 8 mg Down 50%Lemons 15 mg 16 mg Up 6.7%Oranges 20 mg 14 mg Down 30%Peaches 19 mg 12 mg Down 36.8%Pineapples 8 mg 7 mg Down 12.5%Strawberries 21 mg 19 mg Down 9.5%Tangerines 18 mg 10 mg Down 44.4%Watermelons 10 mg 9 mg Down 10%Net Change Down 23.9%*Based on 100 Grams, Edible Portion. Source: USDA food composition tables

4 Reasons to Eat Your Veggies In The Raw

1.) Raw vegetables have a much higher nutrient density than cooked vegetables. If you eat raw you can get far more nutrients into your body eating less food. Eating less is proven to lengthen mammals' life-spans considerably. (Humans are supposed to live to 120-150 years of age according to recent scientific studies).

2.) Raw vegetables just taste better than cooked!

3.) Cooking foods destroys the foods' enzymes. Some scientists say that these enzymes help to digest the foods saving us having to manufacture digestive enzymes which takes vital energy from us.

4.) We are the only animal that cooks our foods and the only animal that has a 90% chance of dying of heart disease, cancer, stroke or diabetes. A gentle and gradual slowing down of all the body systems resulting in quietly dying in our sleep at around 140 years of age is more natural

More Reasons to Eat Your Vegetables

Over time, people have evolved to eat a diverse diet of some 800 plant foods. In fact, the evolutionary process has much to do with why people grew to depend on plant foods for their nutrients and why they are vulnerable to disease if they avoid them. Unfortunately, according to one expert, most eat three: French fries, ketchup and iceberg lettuce. But some of the best foods, ginseng, turmeric and Reishi mushrooms, are so exotic they never make it to the average American dinner table.

Experts suggest people select their servings of fruits and vegetables from seven color groups, such as purple grapes or yellow squash, whose colors are produced by disease-fighting chemicals called carotenoids.

They also point out that those wanting to skip fruits and vegetables for a dietary supplement could likely miss out on all the advantages by not eating the real thing as well as those researchers haven’t discovered yet. To that end, the American Heart Association recently issued a warning that antioxidant supplements don’t prevent heart disease. In fact, some supplements with beta carotene increase one’s cancer risk.

But antioxidants already in vegetables neutralize free radicals, dangerous molecules produced by the body as well as external sources including smoking and radiation. Unchecked, free radicals attack healthy cells that can lead to arterial problems and Alzheimer’s disease as well as damage to DNA that promotes cancer.

Plant-rich diets can improve health and can slow down or prevent some ailments. The following are some of the combinations of nutrients and foods along with potential problems or benefits they may prevent that have been discovered by various researchers:

Depending on the statistical method used, estimates on how many people die from being obese or overweight range from 25,000 to 365,000 a year. And according to a report, only 3 percent of Americans follow health advice to:

But one thing's for sure: People who eat right, exercise and do not smoke are far less likely to develop heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other chronic and deadly conditions. So why aren't more people jumping on the bandwagon?

Using data from the 2000 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System -- an annual survey of the nation's health -- researchers looked at surveys completed by some 154,000 adults. And the surveys said:

A senior clinical nutritionist from New York City explained the dire need for people to be educated on what is healthy and how to incorporate it into their daily lives.

So, along that vein, several U.S. organizations have been attempting to improve America's health: The U.S. Agriculture Department, for example, recently replaced the old food pyramid with a new and improved one, emphasizing exercise with a figure climbing up stairs. The Internet-based advisory, MyPyramid, for the new graphic was designed to tailor nutritional advice to each individual's needs; however, critics argue the site is difficult to navigate.

In addition, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tried to warn of the consequences of poor eating and a lack of exercise, but has been hampered by debate over mortality statistics.

All of the lectures from Mom and years of public service campaigns haven't made the impression they were intended to as a study revealed that Americans aren't eating nearly enough vegetables, as they should.

What's even more troubling is, when asked, the majority of people didn't know how much produce they should be eating. This was evident in a poll taken of 2,742 people that showed 85 percent of consumers were not following the recommended vegetable intake of five servings of produce per day.

The current government produce recommendation is two to four servings of fruit and three to five servings of vegetables a day. These recommendations are expected to change sometime early next year to include more fruits and vegetables.

A nutrition expert stated that the apparent lack of nutrition knowledge among Americans should be looked upon as a wake-up call particularly with the skyrocketing obesity rates.

Another survey showed that a shocking 3 percent admitted to eating no produce at all.

The Four Corners of Optimal Nutrition integrates well-documented but often ignored fundamentals of nutrition and good health into one powerful, unified theory. Adoption of this lifestyle program can enhance performance, optimize body fat, reduce stress, lower blood pressure, blood sugar, insulin levels, cholesterol and triglycerides.

In the 2004 film, Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock embarks upon a month-long descent into fast food Armageddon. Spurlock, a 30-something, 6 ft 2, 185-pound man, decided to begin a one-month, three-meal-a-day “Mac Diet” (McDonalds food only). Prior to the experiment, Spurlock was healthy, physically active and consumed a reasonable 2500 calories a day. Thirty days later, he was eating more than 5,000 calories a day and suffering from depression, rapid mood swings, high blood pressure, low sex drive, and symptoms of addiction. He had gained 24.5 pounds, his cholesterol had shot up 65 points, and his body fat average had jumped from 11 to 18%. After just two weeks on the diet, all three of the physicians with whom Spurlock consulted encouraged him to abandon the diet, as he was showing signs of having seriously compromised his liver. Credible doctors all, these physicians were astonished to discover that a fast food diet could wreak so much havoc on the body. Although his was an extreme experiment, Spurlock’s culinary adventure illustrated well the dangers of a high-fat, high calorie, high oxidative stress diet exacerbated by processed, dead foods and lack of exercise. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia report that in 2000, 56% were overweight, nearly 20% of American adults were obese, 7.3% had diabetes, and about 3% suffered from both conditions. Although greater numbers of people are seeking new ways to optimize their health and minimize their susceptibility to disease, never has nutritional awareness and education been a more pressing concern. Millions of Americans are becoming casualties of one degenerative disease after another. Environmental toxins are certainly part of the problem, but the bigger culprit is our ignorance and disregard of the fundamental principles of good health.

Optimal Nutrition is for everyone from elite athletes to the health challenged who suffer from conditions such as diabetes, hypoglycemia, obesity and eating disorders. Optimal Nutrition revolves around the CRON concept, because eating fewer calories has been proven to extend life, delay disease, and promote optimal health. Scientists agree on this, although various camps have arisen to explain the great success of the CRON concept. Some scientists think that CRON diets work because fewer calories amount to a lower glycemic effect overall (Low Glycemic Diet), regardless of the type of food eaten. Others maintain that the relatively low amount of oxidation associated with CRON diets (because eating less lowers oxidative stress on the body) is why they work so well at extending life and preventing disease (High Antioxidants). People who consume high-calorie diets can suffer from a wide range of symptoms, including fatigue, sleepiness, hypertension, hypoglycemia, colitis, brain fog, and more. It also affects longevity, serious enough to subtract years from your life. This much is certain: more than 2,000 medical studies support the astonishing conclusion that CRON diets can increase lifespan by as much as 30%–50%. If we apply these percentages to the human life span, a 30%–50% increase would translate into a lifespan of between 120 and 150 years. Indeed, CRON diets have been shown to greatly enhance the life span of every species in which CRON has been studied. CRON is thus the most researched and most effective method of life extension—but why does it work? Compelling research suggests that the primary mechanism for the success of CRON-based diets may be that it helps to control pancreatic insulin response.

Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition (CRON) Controlled Insulin Response When it comes to calories, the key is to pack as much nutrition as possible into the lowestcalorie foods that one can comfortably eat. Many people who struggle to maintain their weight or have become diabetic have high levels of insulin in the body. High levels of blood sugar in the body lead to a loss of many vital body chemicals such as minerals, vitamins, and water. Repeated elevations of blood sugar can cause other more long-term and potentially fatal problems such as impairments to cardiovascular, respiratory, and immune function. Insulin is a hormone that plays a critical role in helping to distribute glucose throughout the body. After we eat, insulin is secreted by special cells in the pancreas and it acts to channel glucose to our cells. When our body tissues fail to respond to insulin’s commands, the pancreas will begin (ironically) to secrete more insulin. This excessive circulating blood insulin is very bad for the body, because it leads to increases in fat storage, cholesterol production and blood pressure. Insulin resistance, then, causes an increase and excess of insulin in the body, resulting in metabolic disturbances that affect our ability to lose and maintain weight and can lead to many serious health problems. Too much simple sugar intake can cause excessive insulin secretion. Unfortunately, the high carbohydrate (fat-free) diet that has been marketed so heavily in American culture actually encourages people to eat high glycemic index (GI) foods such as bread, cookies, pretzels, etc., which are quickly converted to sugars in the body. People have assumed that if the product label says “fat free,” that these foods can be eaten with impunity. What has resulted is a nation of fat, unhealthy people.

Calorie Restriction Eating is by far the biggest single stress that we regularly put on our bodies, because the actual process of burning calories within the mitochondria to produce energy naturally generates a large amount of damaging free radicals. This is why caloric restriction is the only proven way of actually reducing the rate of aging—not just the overall mortality rate, but also the actual rate of aging itself. In fact, as Roy Walford points out in his outstanding books Beyond the 120 Year Diet and The Anti-Aging Plan, if one actively pursues a CRON diet, it is possible to greatly extend longevity by this one dietary intervention alone. The most difficult part of this dietary “treatment” is finding the appropriate lowcalorie, optimally nutritious foods to eat that will satisfy hunger and cravings.

Weighing in on Calorie Counting One of the hazards of going on a low-calorie diet is that you will neglect your nutrition. Many people who go on extreme low-calorie diets suffer from low body temperatures, constant hunger, and depleted energy. Such diets are often difficult to sustain over the long term and can also affect overall quality of life. Let’ face it: eating is one of our principal pleasures. While calorie-counting is an important component of optimal nutrition, calories are a very limited criterion for determining the types and amounts of foods that will be the most beneficial for us. Consider, for instance, what a “calorie” is. It is the amount of energy that is required to raise one cubic centimeter of water one degree Celsius. The process of energy metabolism within the cell’s energy factory, the “mighty mitochondrion,” is a highly complex process involving dozens of steps and many biochemical reactions. Consequently, judging the foods you eat simply by counting the number of calories they contain does not account for the amount of energy that is needed to digest the food, nor does it account for the amount of food that is constantly being used in the ongoing bodily processes of breakdown (catabolism) and rebuilding (anabolism).

Quality, Not Quantity Calorie counting also doesn’t account for food quality, or for the amount of food that remains undigested and is subsequently excreted from the body. Moreover, it doesn’t take into consideration how the digestive process may be compromised, such as through “leaky gut syndrome,” where yeast overgrowth from high sugar intake and antibiotic use, as well as food sensitivities, damages the lining of the intestines, creating a permeable state within the intestinal membrane. This, in turn, causes large , undigested food particles to be absorbed directly into the bloodstream, where the immune system then initiates an attack against these “foreign” bodies. This is a major cause for immune dysfunction and food allerg i e s . The Optimal Nutrition component of CRON is about food quality and nutrient density. “Food quality” refers to the actual quality of any given food under consideration. In short, what has it gone through on its way to your plate? Is it nutrient-rich whole food? Is it covered with pesticides? Are these pesticides removable? Is it comprised of genetically modified org a n i s m s , even in part? Was it radiated, fortified, or heavily processed? Was it stored for inordinate lengths of time in toxic environments? Has it been “improved” with cosmetic modifications, such as dyes or waxes? Has it been overexposed to oxygen or heat? Is it a nutritional building block, or is it a form of nutritional “fuel” for the body? And most important . . . is it nutritionally healthful food . . . does it contribute to the body ’s nutritional needs? “Nutrient density” refers to the number and quality of viable nutrients in any given food, relative to the overall number of calories in it. The more nutrient dense the food is, the better it is, because it enables us to consume the greatest number of health-giving nutrients with the smallest number of overall calories.

Optimal nutrition requires that we focus, not on calories alone, but on balancing the correct macro nutrients (proteins, fats, fiber, and low-glycemic carbohydrates), so as to achieve maximum nutrient density to cover the body’s most basic internal requirements. On the negative flip side are empty calorie foods, foods that are full of sugar and trans fatty acids. The sugar content of these “junk foods” is particularly relevant, because excess sugar in the diet quickly leads to an imbalance of the critical “flora” within the digestive tract itself, particularly with respect to the ubiquitous yeast organism, Candida albicans. A normal and healthy digestive tract is comprised of a delicate balance between good bacteria, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus and other “bifido bacteria ,” and a relatively small population of innocuous yeast oganisms . These good bacteria help to manufacture important B vitamins within the body (such as biotin), just as they also help to keep the populations of other potentially noxious organisms (such as clostridia species and Candida albi-cans) in check. Remember, the body’s building blocks are proteins and essential fats, while fuel (what gives us energy) is made up of carbohydrates, fats and some proteins. And finally, as we move into the second of the four corners, it is important to note again that optimal nutrition requires that we ingest foods that produce a low glycemic response within the bloodstream. This involves avoiding sugars and other foodstuffs that result in blood-sugar spikes and choosing foods that minimize a significant insulin response from the pancreas. Although our body has an effective system for operating without carbohydrates, (for example, Eskimos subsist on a diet entirely devoid of carbohydrates, eating mostly fish and seal), we generally need complex carbohydrates in order to survive. But today’s diets have us consuming far too many. Indeed, the body's storage capacity for carbohydrates is quite limited. Excess carbohydrates are converted, via insulin, into glycogen, which is stored in the liver and muscles. It is also converted to cholesterol and into saturated fat (triglycerides), which is stored in the adipose (or “fatty”) tissue. Any meal or snack that is high in carbohydrates can cause blood glucose levels to rise much too rapidly. Insulin from excess carbohydrates both promotes fat and wards off the body's ability to lose that fat. The extremely high sugar content in the modern American diet has been found to directly relate to numerous degenerative diseases. But it isn’t just plain table sugar that has this destructive effect on one’s health. A high glycemic (or high sugar) biochemical response can also be created in the body by eating foods that rapidly convert to sugar in the bloodstream. The glycemic index (GI) classifies foods according to how much they raise blood glucose following ingestion of an amount of the food that contains 50 grams of carbohydrates. For the best health results, consume a diet where most of your foods have a glycemic index of less than 45. To learn more about glycemic index and glycemic load, go to: www.glycemicindex.com.

Low Glycemic Foods Berries (blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, and raspberries) Broccoli Kale Spinach Avocados Nuts and seeds

High Glycemic Foods Grain and grain products White breads Potatoes Rice Cooked or juiced carrots Cooked or juiced beets Soft drinks and sport drinks Fruit juices Bananas and oranges

Benefits of Low Glycemic Response Foods Low GI foods cause a smaller, more gradual rise in blood glucose levels after meals. Low GI foods help you to stay full longer. Low GI diet plans can improve the body's sensitivity to insulin.

Low-Glycemic Response Superfoods! The following is a select list of the top nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods that give you the most bang for the buck. Eat these foods, and live long and well! Spirulina, Grain Grasses (Wheat grass, Barley grass, Rye grass) Sea Vegetables Dark Green Vegetables (Spinach, Kale, Broccoli, Asparagus, Green Beans) Bright Colored Vegetables (Bell & Hot Peppers) Berries (Blueberries, Strawberries, Cranberries, and Raspberries) Eggs from free range hens Grass Fed / Grain Free Beef, Bison, Chicken, Turkey, Lamb, Venison, Rice and Yellow Pea Protein Stabilized Brown Rice Bran Low GI foods can improve blood sugar control in diabetics. Low glycemic foods include above ground dark green vegetables, such as broccoli, kale, and spinach, as well as avocados, nuts, and some fruits, such as blueberries and cranberries. White bread, potatoes, rice, sugary drinks, fruits such as bananas and citrus, and below ground vegetables, such as carrots and beets, are high glycemic foods known to raise insulin levels into the danger zone. Indeed, many of us have already experienced the severe “low energy letdown” that typically happens when we consume large doses of sugar or other high glycemic foods. To reduce the negative effect of high GI foods in a meal, do the following: Eat GI foods along with high quality fiber, protein and fats. Include low GI food such as eggs, meat or berries.vinaigrette or other acidic extras, such as Add lemon juice. Cook with or add some olive oil or coconut oil.

The Munchies . . . Who’s Eating Whom ? Dangerous increases in blood sugar provoke the pancreas to release a correspondingly large amount of insulin, which seriously disrupts the body. When junk foods are consumed, the pancreas metabolizes the existing amount of sugar in the bloodstream; however, because more insulin is typically released than is actually needed, the extra insulin goes on to create an uncomfortable hypoglycemic, or blood sugar, level. The extra insulin also goes on to add to the fat reserves of the body as well. Excess weight and obesity, of course, lead directly to heart disease and many other degenerative diseases, including cancer. Furthermore, mold-laden grains and sugars suppress the immune system, contribute to allergies, and underlie a whole host of digestive disorders. High-glycemic foods also contribute to depression and are associated with many of the chronic diseases that currently plague us, such as cancer and diabetes.

S y n d rome X . . . On the Rise The combination of a high glycemic diet, high blood insulin levels, and increased bodily fat reserves is responsible for creating one of the most deadly health syndromes to surface in the last century: Syndrome X, or the Metabolic Syndrome. Syndrome X is the variable combination of obesity, high blood cholesterol and hypertension, linked by underlying resistance to insulin (glucose intolerance). In 2001, Forbes Magazine documented that 70 million Americans are affected by Syndrome X. Only 15 years ago, that number was at 43 million. And growing numbers are appearing among children and teenagers, especially in African-American and Hispanic communities. Lifestyle, genetics, and poor nutrition all work together to create this devastating health problem. Stephen Holt, M.D. indicates in his book Combat Syndrome X, Y and Z that a high percentage of today’s health food

Why Here? Why Now? The Age of “Refinement” A relatively new phenomenon in medicine, the term Syndrome X was first coined by Gerry Reaven of Stanford University in the late 1980s. Syndrome X owes much of its existence to the massive deterioration in the quality of our food supply. Prior to World War II, most foods were “whole” in the sense of not being “processed” by high-tech machines. This is one of the primary reasons why heart disease wasn’t anywhere near the #1 killer of Americans at that time . . . foods such as whole grain breads were not being stripped of the critical, life-saving nutrients (B-complex vitamins and vitamin E) found in the wheat germ. But there is a problem with wheat germ. It is highly vulnerable to spoilage. For food manufacturers this meant that the “shelf life” of these whole foods was limited at best. However, once we learned that whole grains could be refined to the point that the wheat germ could be eliminated entirely, it was discovered that the shelf life of most of these highly processed foods could be increased dramatically. And while this had a positive financial effect on all the businesses related to food production, it had a thoroughly deleterious effect on the health of Americans . Not only were they now deprived of one of nature ’s premier antioxidants (vitamin E), they were also deprived of all the B-complex vitamins that naturally reside within the wheat germ itself. It was at this point in American history that cardiovascular disease became the number one killer of Americans, seemingly overnight.

The processing and refining of whole foods was a kind of “nutritional suicide”—resulting in a wave of “empty” foods, full of calories, but devoid of almost any nutritional value. As we now know, one of the chief causes of cardiovascular disease is a toxic amino acid called homocysteine, which is produced naturally within the body as the normal product of metabolism. However, the body has a built-in protective shield against homocysteine, which is comprised of the very same B-vitamins that were milled out of whole grains (such as pyridoxine, or B6, folate, or B9, and methylcobalamin, or B12) when the “Age of Refinement” came into being. Moreover, the milling of whole grains into white flour also resulted in the loss of the fat-soluble antioxidant vitamin E, which also has been shown to have a protective effect on the heart. The processing and refining of whole foods was a kind of “nutritional suicide”—resulting in a wave of “empty” foods, full of calories, but devoid of almost any nutritional value. Indeed, most refined foods don’t even have enough critical and co-factors to enable them to be properly nutrients digested and absorbed into the body. Accordingly, when we consume these nutritionally empty foods, body has to call upon its critical nutritional the reserves just to be able to digest them. This, in turn, leads to a highly destructive cascade of events within the body. Once these critical nutrients and co-factors are “pulled” from other parts of the body, so that they can aid in the digestive process, they are no longer available for the remainder of the body to make good use of. The tragic result of this massive deficiency of B vitamins within the body is that the body has now become prone to the many potentially lethal symptoms of B vitamin deficiency, including insanity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, chronic fatigue, cerebral dysfunction, and even outright death.

S y n d rome X— A Wakeup Call, Not a Death Knell Syndrome X is strongly correlated with the phenomenon of insulin resistance, in that the insulin that is released by the pancreas is not used efficiently or effectively by the body, which is why progressively greater amounts of insulin are required to metabolize a certain amount of glucose. This increased amount of blood insulin wreaks utter havoc within the body . . . and additional fat reserves is only the beginning. The resulting health implications are profound: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, thrombosis, female endocrine disorder, acne, abnormal hair growth, infertility, impaired immunity, inflammation, and cancer. People suffering from Syndrome X often show a loss of energy and a general lack of vitality. They tend to lead very sedentary lifestyles; they eat larger portions of food than most; and some are substance abusers, in that they consume too much sugar, alcohol, or over-thecounter drugs. The solution to Syndrome X is mostly lifestyle related. First and foremost, one must focus on eating low glycemic foods as a matter of course. As mentioned before, low glycemic foods are those that slowly and gently produce a gradual increase in blood glucose levels. These foods include nuts, meat and poultry, eggs, and low glycemic complex carbohydrates, such as broccoli, spinach, and berries. Several additional nutrients have also been shown to help fight insulin resistance—chromium, vanadium, magnesium, and potassium. Controlled protein intake along with more liberal healthy fats, such as fish oil, olive oil, and coconut oil can have a very positive effect, as does eating a balanced diet that is high in fiber. Obviously you shouldn’t smoke, but you should also pay attention to other potential excesses, such as caffeine, alcohol, over-the-counter medications, or “sneaky” sources of fructose such as soda and fruit juices. Coffee (caffeine) decreases insulin sensitivity, raises insulin levels, and increases diabetes risk. And finally, regular aerobic exercise is also known to reduce blood insulin levels.

High Antioxidants We’ve all heard about the importance of antioxidants in the maintenance of health and even in the prevention of degenerative disease. But what precisely is an antioxidant, and why are antioxidants so important for human health? Simply put, antioxidants are a group of compounds produced by the body that occur naturally in many foods. They work together to protect us from damage caused by oxidation. How do they do this? Let’s dig a little deeper. We all know what happens when oxygen is allowed to interact with a slice of apple, for instance. It quickly turns brown. This is due to the “oxidizing” effects of atmospheric oxygen on the slice of fruit itself. The same principle applies to the rusting of a car. For when oxygen is allowed to react with unprotected metal, the metal itself becomes oxidized to the point that it becomes rusty. Remarkably, the very same process happens inside the human body. As we all know, a continuous supply of oxygen is critical for the maintenance of life itself. Oxygen is used to make energy out of the food we eat through a complex biochemical series of reactions called the Krebs Cycle. However, there are toxic byproducts of this energy-making process that are inevitably produced when oxygen is used to produce energy inside the cell’s built-in energy factory, the “mighty mitochondria.” These toxic byproducts are called free radicals, and they are dangerous because they tend to wreak all types of biochemical mischief inside the body, in an ever increasing “domino effect,” unless they are “mopped up” by substances designed to stop their toxic spread throughout the body. These invaluable substances are appropriately known as “antioxidants,” because they soak up the toxic free radicals that are produced by the oxidation process.

Ubiquitous Free Radicals—Both Inside the Body and Out Some free radicals are generated from normal body functions such as breathing, metabolism and exercise. Others are created by the immune system to neutralize viruses and bacteria. But, it is important to note that not all free radicals are naturally generated within the body in response to normal body metabolism. On the contrary, the vast majority of free radicals come from our toxic environment, whether from pollution in the air and water, radiation, herbicides, cigarette smoke, or the ingestion of delicate oils over-exposed to oxygen or heat. These externally-acquired free radicals then go on to add to the internal damage that is caused by the body’s own pool of naturally-produced free radicals. These free radicals attack healthy cells, weakening them and making them more susceptible to disease. In short, as Lester Packer points out in his groundbreaking book The Antioxidant Miracle, they “fast-forward the aging process.”

Antioxidants can mean the difference between life and death. They are a protective shield that insulates the body from aging and disease. The overall proportion of oxidants to antioxidants within the body has even been shown to be responsible for the vast majority of human diseases. The noted California biochemist Stephen A. Levine was the first individual to build a comprehensive theory of health and disease on the pervasive existence of free radicals within the body. It was his landmark book Antioxidant Adaptation (1984) which showed how one’s propensity for illness is directly related to the balance of oxidants to antioxidants within the body. When the balance is upset in favor of oxidants over antioxidants, the body will attempt to adapt to the new situation until adaptation is no longer physiologically possible. This is when the various degenerative diseases begin to set in. But even when the number of oxidants is roughly balanced (and hence neutralized) by the number of antioxidants, and a state of health is achieved, the body is still quite vulnerable. There are two ways of controlling free radicals—through a CRON (low-calorie diet), or through the use of a full range of health-protecting antioxidants—so that the disease process caused by free radicals can be quenched to the greatest possible degree.

Oxidation and Aging The importance of supplementing one’s diet with appropriate antioxidants cannot be overemphasized. There are several reasons for this. First, it is difficult, if not impossible, to get the optimal level of antioxidants through food alone. Also, as we age, our ability to synthesize antioxidant enzymes within the body diminishes markedly, as do the various hormonal markers of aging. Moreover, age greatly diminishes the body’s ability to detoxify the various poisons that it ingests unintentionally on a daily basis, thus leading to a steady accumulation of free radical-producing toxins with each passing day. This is the “free radical theory of aging” in its simplest form, and it says essentially that we age because free radicals tend to accumulate within the body in ever-increasing amounts. This, in turn, leads to all manner of biochemical mayhem within the body. These destructive effects include “cross-linking” the skin’s different layers to one another, which produces wrinkles. Part of cross-linking is due to glycation, an oxidation-like process that involves the harmful linking of proteins with sugars, which renders the proteins ineffective (in much the same way as a chicken browns in the oven). Glycation is not as well known as its cousin oxidation, but it is just as destructive. The only way currently known to block glycation is through use of the amino acid supplement, Carnosine (a supplement we highly recommend for every adult), and a low-glycemic diet. Left unchecked, glycation can result in the neutralization of as many as 1/3 of the body’s protein by the end of one’s life. This “free radical” theory of aging and disease can actually be used therapeutically to help counter the disease process. For if disease is simply caused by a significant over- preponderance of oxidants to antioxidants within the body, then it will be of major benefit to introduce a wide variety of antioxidants into the body, in the hope that they will help to quench the many disease processes that have been initiated by the initial onslaught of free radicals. This is why the use of an intravenous vitamin C drip can be effective in fighting a whole host of different diseases—because all the extra vitamin C goes towards quenching the huge number of disease-causing free radicals within the body. As ninety-five percent of all cancers are thought to be caused by the free radicals that are contained in our diet and the environment, it makes sense to consume a protective mixture of antioxidants, so that self-propagating free radical reactions can be quenched before they have a chance to alter our DNA and create disease. The quantity of each person’s exposure to these environmental poisons is also critical, because antioxidants don’t function indefinitely to quell free radical production. On the contrary, they are used up, and hence become worthless, when they neutralize any given free radical reaction within the body. This is why imperative to consume enough it is antioxidants to effectively neutralize all of the toxins and free radicals within the body.is to try to balance the amount of A good rule of thumb here toxins one is exposed to the amount of antioxidants that one consumes on a daily basis. Particularly heavy toxic exposures within the environment should thus be treated with an even higher dosage of antioxidants, because this will minimize the free radical mediated disease process within the body.

A Bold Defense Against Degenerative Diseases Related to Aging Many people are skeptical of using antioxidants to battle the major degenerative diseases of aging, largely because they don’t understand how free radicals themselves can actually cause disease. In the case of cancer, for instance, free radicals actually attack the genetic machinery inside the DNA molecule, by actually stealing away electrons from within the DNA itself. This, in turn, leads to a chain reaction “domino effect,” by forcing each newly created free radical to steal yet another electron from amongst its neighbors. If this terribly destructive process isn’t quenched immediately, it goes on to cause catastrophic alterations within the various “base codes” of the DNA molecule itself. It is this type of damage to the information content of each DNA molecule that causes th cell to begin to grow wildly, without any control. Fortunately, the intake of various antioxidants is able to intervene positively in this extraordinarily destructive process, by quenching the various free radicals that are causing all of these DNA-altering chain reactions. A similar mechanism applies to cardiovascular disease. The propagation of free radicals within the body damages the inner lining of our blood vessels (which is called the i n t i m a), by stealing electrons from them, thus causing them to become unstable. These damaged areas of the intima are then plugged with oxidized cholesterol and other fatty deposits, and this process continues unabated until atherosclerotic “plaques” are formed on the inside of our blood vessels. These plaques not only cause the diameter of the blood vessels themselves to shrink (hence leading to a full-scale blockage of blood flow), it also causes the blood to become “ hyper-coaguable,” by increasing the blood’s propensity to clot. It is clots that are formed in this manner that help to occlude blood vessels entirely, which in turn leads to the symptoms of ischemia, or of low oxygen and nutrient supply to the target tissues that are involved. If it is the brain that is involved, a stroke is the typical result, and if the target organ is the heart, a classic heart attack is generally the result.

A person’s propensity for illness is directly related to the balance of oxidants to antioxidants within the body. Fortunately, this degenerative process can also be arrested in the early stages by the oral administration of various antioxidants. For by quenching the free radicals that cause the initial damaging of the inner lining of our blood vessels, antioxidants help to stop the original cause of cardiovascular disease. This is good news indeed, for not only does it give us the ability to actually prevent heart disease many years down the road, it also helps to increase the flow of blood throughout the body in the here and now, which in turn leads to a better functioning body today. Oxidation can be reduced by eating nutrient dense, high antioxidant foods, by eating less food, and by supplementing with antioxidants.

The Quest for Antioxidants Fortunately, we have available to us today a wide range of very potent antioxidants, which can scavenge and neutralize free radicals before they have a chance to cause disease. For instance, there are flavonoids, part of a larger group of molecules called polyphenol compounds, that are found in plants, notably in the pigments of leaves, barks, rinds, seeds, and flowers. Flavonoids— boost the effectiveness of Improve memory and concentration and are used to treat attention deficit disorder; Are powerful free radical scavengers that can vitamin C in the antioxidant network; Regulate nitric oxide, a potent free radical that is a regulator of blood healthy in three important flow; Keep your heart ways. They prevent blood clots, protection against oxidation of LDL cholesterol, and lower high blood function in men; and pressure; Improve sexual Reduce inflammation and bolster immune function. Flavonoids are found in abundance in plants, fruits, beverages. The best vegetables, and plant-based sources include tea leaves, oranges, citrus fruit, apples, onions, red grapes, berries and pine bark. Other vitamin A, vitamin C, well-known antioxidants are full-spectrum vitamin E including tocotrienols and tocopherols, along with zinc, selenium, manganese, alpha Cysteine, and glutathione. lipoic acid, Nacetyl Clearly, through the work of Packer, Levine and others, we are discovering just how incredibly pervasive the antioxidants are, from bolstering benefits of immune and detoxification systems to regulating genes to keeping the brain healthy to retarding and controlling the process.aging

The Top 20 Antioxidant FoodsSmall red bean (dried)Pinto beanBlueberry (cultivated)CranberryArtichoke (cooked)BlackberryPruneRaspberryStrawberryRed Delicious appleGranny Smith applePecanSweet cherryBlack plumRusset potato (cooked)Black bean (dried)Wild blueberryRed kidney bean (dried)

Healthy Fats The Good—Unsaturated Fats Unsaturated fats are of two varieties—polyunsaturated and monounsaturated—and are found in products derived from plant sources. Polyunsaturated fats are found in high concentrations in chia seeds, flax seeds, fish oil, and borage seed oil. Monounsaturated fats are found in high concentrations in olives, nuts, and avocados. Omega-3s and 6s are types of polyunsaturated fats that are essential for normal growth and may play an important role in the prevention and treatment of coronary artery disease, hypertension, arthritis, cancer, and other inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. Most people eat too much Omega-6 and are deficient in Omega-3 s .Healthy fats is the most universally misunderstood. Contrary to popular opinion, healthy fats are essential to optimal health and do not make you fat. A University of Buffalo study found that a moderate 33% fat diet was equally effective for weight loss as a low fat 18% diet, but better at reducing the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

The Mostly Misunderstood—Saturated Fats Saturated fats are mainly animal fats found in meat, dairy products, poultry skin, and egg yolks. Saturated fats have gotten a bad name because it was once thought that in excess they tend to worsen blood cholesterol levels. However, saturated fats have gotten their bad reputation unfairly, and in fact have many health benefits. Coconut and coconut oil are plant-based medium chain saturated fats which have been shown to provide extraordinary health benefits.

The Ugly—Trans Fats While they exist in nature, trans fatty acids are also produced by heating liquid vegetable oils in the presence of hydrogen, in a process known as hydrogenation. This process increases the oils’ firmness and resistance to oxidative spoilage. Most of the trans fats in the American diet are found in commercially prepared baked goods, margarines, snack foods, and processed foods. Fried foods such as French Fries and onion rings also contain a good deal of trans fats. Unlike saturated fats, trans fats do not produce any good HDL, and they raise bad LDL. Some of the most damaging foods to the body are donuts, french fries, potato chips and other foods deep fried in delicate oils. I t ’s Still a Potato Chip It may say “low-fat” and even “organic” on the label, but let’s get real . . . a potato chip is a potato chip no matter how “you slice it.” While “trans” fatty acids may have an unusually long shelf life, they’re also exceptionally damaging to every organ system in the body, and they’re the most damaging to cells of the nervous system and, in particular, the brain. “Trans” fatty acids damage the body because they displace, and thus supplant, the good “cis” fatty acids from the body’s various cell membranes, with the tragic result that their essential functionality is profoundly damaged. This damaged functionality displays itself in the form of a vastly altered permeability of the cellular membrane itself, which in turn results in unwanted molecules making their way inside our cells, while the “right” molecules for optimal health are not absorbed properly. One of the physiological consequences of this is severe and unrelenting inflammation, which itself leads to all sorts of degenerative diseases within the body. So think again before reaching for that Dunkin ’ Donut .

What’s All the Fuss About Fats? Americans tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to the word fat, even when it’s a healthy fat. The low-fat food craze has left behind a terrible misperception in the minds of Americans . . . that “low in fat” means healthy, and that fats in general are bad. Yet this is far from the truth! From her work with insulin-resistant patients with Type II diabetes, Dr. Diana Schwarzbein has concluded that: Low-fat diets cause heart attacks; Eating fat makes you lose body fat; and It's important to eat high-cholesterol foods everyday. According to Schwarzbein, the high-carbohydrate, low-fat, moderate-protein diet that most dieticians and disease-prevention organizations recommend is the culprit that turns people into diabetics, makes them age faster and acquire degenerative diseases, and keeps them fat and unhealthy. She supports her theory with case studies of people who were sick and unhealthy on high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets, but who sprang back to life when they “balanced” their diets with more fat and protein. Schwarzbein recommends avoiding “manmade carbohydrates”—processed carbohydrates— in favor of those you could “pick, gather or milk.” She advises patients to eat “as much good fat as their body needs.” This means eggs, avocados, flaxseed oil, butter, mayonnaise, and olive oil. Fried foods and hydrogenated fats are, of course, “bad fats,” or “damaged fats,” as Schwarzbein calls them. You can eat as many eggs a day as you want on this plan, plus meat , saturated fat, cream, and non starchy vegetables.

Omega-3—The New Vitamin C As Andrew L. Stoll, M.D. points out in his book The Omega-3 Connection, Omega-3s may be this millennium’s vitamin C. Historically, humans have been slow to recognize nutritional deficiencies. We now know that vitamin C deficiency can lead to scurvy. But the nations of Europe didn’t really make the connection until the mid-1700s when an English naval surgeon discovered that oranges and lemons could cure sailors of the disease. Natural lipids derived from cold water oily fish, as well as from wild animals and plants, Omega-3 fatty acids began to disappear from the typical Western diet in the 20th century, and only recently have we begun to see the health concerns their absence has caused. Omega-3 fatty acids control many of the most basic functions of the cell. Omega-3 oils are a major constituent of brain cell membranes and are converted to critical brain chemicals. One can easily see, then, how essential they are for normal nervous system function, and how their deficiency might be linked to mood regulation, attention, memory and mental health. Stoll documents that one can see the effects of omega-3 deprivation or loss at every developmental stage of life. Deficiency in infants results in sub-optimal cognitive and visual development. In children, it can result in lowered attention, impulse control, and susceptibility to depression. In teenagers and adults it can cause a greater tendency toward violence and hostility. And in aging adults, it puts them at higher risk for stroke, memory problems and dementia.Omega-3 fatty acids also benefit the body by increasing insulin sensitivity. We tend to think of circulation as the process of flow through arteries and veins; obviously this is the case, but the major part of circulation is what goes into and out of the cell itself, by crossing the allimportant cell membrane. Regardless of what nutrient is delivered to a cell, it will have no effect at all if it can't get into the cell itself. Cellular circulation is deeply affected by the intake of fatty acids, which in turn affects the fluidity of the cell membrane. Increasing the Omega-3 content of one’s diet significantly increases cell-membrane fluidity and hence allows more nutrients to reach the cells themselves.

Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for normal growth and may play an important role in the prevention and treatment of coronary artery disease, hypertension, arthritis cancer and other inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. One of the more profound uses of omega-3 fatty acids is in the treatment of a wide range of mental illnesses, including bi-polar disorder, unipolar major depression, postpartum depression, schizophrenia, and attention-deficit disorder. The brain does not function well unless adequate amounts of Omega-3s are circulating in the blood stream and are incorporated into cell membranes. It appears that increases in omega-3 dietary intake raises the levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is related to motivation and ambition, qualities often lacking in depressed people.

Time for an Oil Change The bottom line is that healthy fats (fatty acids) are critical to life. The body is designed to manufacture most of the fats it needs. However there are two major classes of fats that the body needs and cannot manufacture on its own; they must be obtained through diet. These fats are the essential fatty acids (EFA)s. The EFA classes are called Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. There are two categories of Omega-3: plant sources such as flax seed which contain alpha linolenic acid (ALA), and marine sources such as salmon, tuna, mackerel, sardines and anchovies. The most eff e c t i v e forms of Omega-3s are EPA ( eicosapentanoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). Scientists agree that less than 15% of ALA converts to DHA and with little or no conversion to EPA. Due to this poor conversion, plant Omega-3 like flax seed cannot on its own meet our body’s nutritional requirement. Fish oil from cold water fish is a direct source of EPA and DHA. In fact, fish oil has been shown to significantly increase lifespan and delay disease where no other dietary changes are made One would assume that eating fish regularly would be prudent, however it is unsafe to eat fish, as virtually every species has been shown to contain unsafe levels of mercury and other contaminants. Similar to Omega-3 EPA/DHA, Gamma Linolenic Acid (GLA) is one of the most powerful forms of Omega-6. When GLA(found in borage seed oil and evening primrose oil) is combined with EPA, beneficial prostaglandins are produced.

Where to Find Omega-3s? So is it as easy as taking a fish oil supplement? Unfortunately not. While high-dose fish oil (equivalent to a piece of fish) has extraordinary health benefits, it is extremely susceptible to oxidation/lipid peroxidation within the body unless therapeutic doses of fat soluble antioxidants (tocotrienols and full spectrum vitamin E) are taken along with the fish oil. Most commercially available fish oils contain miniscule amounts of vitamin E, which addresses the issue of shelf life, but has no protective effect within the body. Purified antioxidant protected fish oils appear to be the only prudent choice. The body must receive a continuous supply of EFAs in proper ratios in order to ensure proper production of prostaglandins. Prostaglandins are beneficial hormone-like compounds that a ffect virtually every system in the body. They regulate pain and swelling, help maintain proper blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and promote efficiency in the nervous system. Because the American diet is rich in vegetable oils, nuts and seeds, and low in cold water fish, most people tend to eat far too much Omega-6 and are dangerously deficient in Omega-3. Both the level of Omega-3 and the ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids are critically important and most people are far out of balance in favor of Omega-6. A healthy ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids is thought to be approximately 1-3:1. The answer is usually as simple as taking fewer Omega-6s and adding antioxidant protected fish oil to your diet. Remember . . . antioxidant protected fish oil is fish oil that contains sufficient fat soluble antioxidants (tocotrienols and tocopherols) to block the risk of lipid peroxidation of the delicate fish oil within the body.

Change Your Breakfast, Change Your Li f e Breakfast is the meal where most people make the biggest nutritional mistakes, ranging from not eating anything to eating sugars, grains, pasteurized dairy products, pork products, or fried foods. Don't let the breakfast food paradigm force you into making poor breakfast choices. It is nutritionally proper to eat lunch and dinner foods for breakfast (i.e., leftover chicken or steak and salad from dinner). The goal is to get protein, healthy fats, and low-glycemic carbs at every meal.

Drink Lots of Fresh, Purified or Spring Water You should drink 8 to 12 glasses per day, which can be as much as 1 quart per 50 lbs of body weight per day. Do not regularly drink distilled water and do not drink water in cloudy plastic containers. Those who drink water exclusively seem to experience the best results; however, occasional drink alternatives can include organic herbal teas (dioxin and caffeine free) served hot or cold, lemon water, or lemonade sweetened with Stevia or TheraSweet™. Stevia or TheraSweet™ are excellent natural sweeteners with virtually no glycemic index. If you choose a sweet-tasting beverage, it’s best to drink it with food.

What You Need to Know About Fish Oil. The purest forms of fish oil are derived from sardines and anchovies, and purified through a flash-molecular distillation process. Fish oil must be rigorously tested to ensure that it is free of impurities including PCB’s, heavy metals or oxidized contaminants . The most beneficial Omega-3 is EPA & DHA, which can only be found in high concentration in fish oil. (Plant-based Omega-3 from flax seed oil cannot give you all the benefits of fish oil.) When taking fish oil, use a high quality full-spectrum vitamin E with tocotrienols and tocopherols to protect against lipid peroxidation (which is toxic to every cell in the body). Fish oil will retain its original flavor and aroma. If not, the oils have been over processed . Things to AVOID: Every species of commercial fish has been shown to contain unsafe levels of mercury and other contaminants. Farm raised fish are contaminated for different reasons (they are fed toxins). Super concentrated fish oils are reconstructed into an unnatural etherified form. Liquid fish oils due to risk of oxidation. Fish oil should be oxygen protected in a gelatin capsule (buffalo gelatin is the safest).

Learn Ways to Balance a Negative with a Positive Recognize that there are only two reasons why people should eat and at least three reasons why we actually do. The two essential reasons are Foundation (building blocks) and Fuel. The third reason why people eat is for Fun. Most people are not going to give up eating for fun, so the trick is to discover those fun foods that are the least destructive to health. Learn how to reduce the negative impact some of these fun foods have on the human body. For instance, if you choose to consume a high starch meal, a sweet dessert, or an alcoholic beverage, then eat high fiber foods like a large dark green salad or other greens or eat quality fats and proteins before hand. It is also helpful to drink water with lemon or have vinegar on your salad. All these things help to slow down the pace at which sugar enters your bloodstream, thereby reducing the harmful insulin response from the concentrated sugars.

Have a Snack Strategy and Inventory on Hand Great snack choices are berries, salads, above-ground raw vegetables, soft-boiled eggs, raw nuts and seeds (walnuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, brazil nuts, CocoChia™, coconuts, chia seeds and pumpkin seeds). Eat organic whenever possible.

What should I eat? Even if you are not ready to make radical nutritional changes there are four simple things anyone can do to that can dramatically impact your health:

Eliminating all sweet drinks and stimulants and drinking 8–12 glasses of water per day;

Minimizing all sugars, high GI foods, and grains (replace with raw or steamed greens),

Eat a Variety of Salads, Green Vegetables, and Bright-Colored (Above-Ground) Vegetables Some good choices include broccoli, spinach, kale, mustard greens, collard greens, mixed greens, asparagus, green beans, peppers, cucumbers, brussels sprouts, barley greens, radishes, and onions. These vegetables deliver the most nutrition when they are raw, juiced, or slightly steamed. Cooking foods destroys the foods' enzymes.

Eat Eggs Eat eggs from organically raised free-range or free-roaming hens that are not grain-fed. Look for high DHA on the label. Buying organic eggs is important, because processed or “tricked-chicken” eggs, where farmers trick the chickens into laying more eggs by using lights 24/7, are not as nutritious. Anatural freeroaming hen lays approximately 80 eggs per year, whereas a tricked chicken lays as many as 250 eggs per year. Don’t be afraid to add more eggs to your diet. Contrary to popular belief, eggs do not increase blood cholesterol levels. Excess sugar and high GI foods are the cause of high cholesterol levels. Additionally, eat only eggs that are raw or have been prepared with low heat, such as soft boiled, poached, over-easy, or even raw eggs . If your eggs have been burned, do not eat them, and if they are not organic, do not eat them raw!

Eat Chicken, Organic Turkey, and Wild Game If you are not eating organic foods and grainfree, grass-fed meats and eggs because of their compromised Omega-6 to 3 ratios, then it is even more critical that you take antioxidant protected fish oil, in doses equivalent to eating a medium-sized piece of fish.

Eat Fish (But Only Fish that Have Been Certified Free of Mercury ) Testing shows that unsafe mercury levels and other pollutants contaminate most fish, including farm-raised fish; therefore, you may want to minimize your fish intake and take an antioxidant protected fish oil such as Living Fuel’s Omega-3&E. If you choose to eat fish, the fish with higher levels of the essential fats EPA and DHA include Pacific Salmon, Summer Flounder, Haddock, Anchovies, and Sardines. Avoid commercial farm-raised fish as they are fed pollutants and are virtually devoid of omega-3 EPA / DHA essential fats.

Eat Other Great Sources of Protein These include beef (grain-free/grass-fed; commercial beef has numerous problems and should be minimized), bison (grain free/ grass-fed), lamb.

Eat Appropriate Soups, Broths, and Stews These items are also healthy as long as their ingredients are consistent with the above.

How should I eat ? First, it’s critical to eat smaller portions, smaller bites, and to minimally cook or eat raw foods when appropriate. Also, you may hear your mother’s voice whispering in your ear when I say this: but CHEW YOUR FOOD! Try to masticate your food to a liquid form and then swallow it. This will predigest your food with the enzymes in your saliva. It also provides neurological stimulation of your stomach and pancreas to increase their acid and digestive enzyme production.

What shouldn’t I eat? The foods to avoid are the majority of foods that most people eat and by their nature are highly addictive. However, realize that you will be making better choices and learning new habits. Most people overcome their unhealthy cravings and food addictions to coffee, dairy, grains, and sugar after only 1–4 weeks.

Avoid Sugar and Things that Turn to Sugar Quickly After Eating Such items include all grains, syrups, pasta, potatoes, white rice, oatmeal, breads, and cakes . A good rule when considering these types of carbohydrates is “If it’s white, it ain’t right . ” This rule is generally accurate; exceptions include cauliflower, radishes, garlic, and onions. Regular consumption of sugar and high glycemic foods causes chronic hyperinsulinemia, which is the root cause of most diseases of aging.

Avoid Snack Foods, Desserts, Most Fruits, Soft Drinks, Sports Drinks, Fruit Juices, Sweet Drinks, Coffee , and Alcoholic Beverages Alcohol is essentially liquid sugar and is extremely high-glycemic, and it adversely raises insulin levels. If you must have a drink or juice or other “destructive carbohydrate,” then treat each such food or drink as if it were a dessert and govern yourself accordingly.

Avoid Pork Products such as Bacon, Sausage and Ham, and Shellfish, such as Lobster, Shrimp and Crab. Pigs can be a breeding ground for potentially dangerous infections, and shellfish have been found to contain high mercury levels.

Minimize or Avoid All Pasteurized Dairy Proucts Only use such foods if you get them raw, right from the farm, prior to the pasteurization process (eggs are poultry not dairy).

Avoid Unfermented Soy Products Soy is not healthy for most people because of its anti-nutritional properties (unless it is Non-GMO and fermented soy such as soy sauce, miso, or tempeh); 98% of the soy crop worldwide is genetically modified, which has been shown to have negative health consequences.

Avoid all Junk Food, French Fries, Fried Foods, Pizza, and Margarine Raw organic butter and raw butter from grass fed cows are very nutritious and are exceptions to the no-dairy rule, but minimize all pasteurized dairy products. Give yourself some time to become acclimated to the dietary changes you’ve made, and to enjoy the incredible variety of health benefits that are derived from a low-calorie, low-glycemic, high-antioxidant, and healthy fats diet. Eating intelligently and well is a pleasure . . . it will not only make you feel better . . . in very little time it will start to taste better too. My hope is that as you begin to implement these powerful health changes in your own life, you will begin to discover new and creative ways to enjoy the foods that will help you live longer and better.

FOODS Variety of salads, green vegetables and bright colored, above ground vegetables some good choices include broccoli, spinach, kale, mixed greens, asparagus green beans, peppers, cucumbers, barley greens, radishes, garlic and onions. Organic, free range eggs Berries (cranberries, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries) Organic chicken, turkey and wild game such as grass fed beef, venison, buffalo, lamb and deer Antioxidant protected fish oil and certified mercury-free pacific salmon, summer flounder, haddock, anchovies and sardines Virgin coconut oil, olive oil, GLA, conjugated linolenic acid (CLA), and raw organic butter Celtic sea salt or real salt brand mineral sea salts Nuts (almonds, cashews, and macadamia) and organic coconut

Eliminate all soft drinks and fruit juices. Minimize coffee, alcoholic beverages and artificial sweeteners. Minimize all grains (bread, rice and cereal); avoid junk foods such as french fries (anything deep fried) and pizza. Minimize pasteurized dairy products such as milk, cheese and cream. Avoid unfermented, genetically modified soy products. Minimize grain-fed, commercial beef, pork products and shellfish. Avoid farm raised fish, such as catfish or salmon and fish with high mercury levels such as tuna. Avoid hydrogenated oil found in commercially prepared baked goods, margarines, snack and processed foods. Minimize all sugars (candy, cookies, cakes and syrups) and chips.

Listen to Your Body!

There are four time-tested, clinically proven gauges of health that you can use to determine your own level of health. They are:

These four factors are your signs on the highway to optimal wellness. You can use these proven health indicators to monitor your success on the beginner's nutrition plan. Additionally, you can use these indicators to figure out when to move to the intermediate level of this nutritional plan. You'll feel comfortable, confident and psychologically ready to move on to the next level, and your indicators of health will be in their optimal ranges

So what's the deal with insulin levels? Well, you need insulin to live, but you probably have far too much insulin floating around in your body. Most adults have about one gallon of blood in their bodies and are quite surprised to learn that in that gallon, there is only one teaspoon of sugar! You only need one teaspoon of sugar at all times -- if that. If your blood sugar level were to rise to one tablespoon of sugar you would quickly go into a hyperglycemic coma and die.

You body works very hard to prevent this by producing insulin to keep your blood sugar at the appropriate level. This reaction keeps you from dying when you eat sugar. Unfortunately, it turns out that high levels of insulin are quite toxic for your body. Anytime you eat grains and sugars, you are increasing your insulin levels. If you have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, or are overweight, it is highly likely that you are eating far too many grains. When I reference diabetes I am referring to the most common type, type 2 diabetes, which typically occurs in adulthood and is associated with increased weight. Type 1 diabetes is actually a problem with not enough insulin, as the pancreas loses the ability to manufacture it.

To find out your insulin levels, you need to get tested by your doctor. The test you need to ask for is a fasting blood sugar test, which can also be called an FBS, glucose test or blood sugar levels test. It consists of a small withdrawal of blood after a fasting period of six hours.

Another helpful test would be to actually measure your fasting insulin level. You can safely ignore the reference ranges from the lab as they are based on "normals" of a population that has highly-disturbed insulin levels.

I do these tests regularly in my office. Your fasting insulin level should be 5 or below -- the lower the better. A fasting insulin level above 10 suggests profound insulin disturbances; the higher the number, the worse off you are. It's unusual to have levels above 20 in someone who is not already diabetic. When you get tested, if your insulin level is below 5, you can use this as an indication that it might be safe to progress to the intermediate level nutrition plan.

Once you normalize your weight and exercise, you can reintroduce grains into your diet at a lower level to optimize your health.

This second factor is something we struggle with more and more; millions and millions of people are overweight in the U.S. and the percentage just keeps going up. To read about the epidemic of obesity in America and around the world, please type any relevant keyword into my search engine and click "search." You'll find lots of information to help you understand this truly troubling problem.

One effective and simple method to figure out if you have a weight problem is as follows: With a tape measure, comfortably measure the distance around the smallest area below the rib cage and above the umbilicus (belly button). Waist circumference, perhaps surprisingly, is the best simple anthropometric measure of total body fat, is better than BMI (body mass index), and is also the best simple indicator of intra-abdominal fat mass. So if you measure your waist, men would be classified as obese if their waste size was above 40 and women if it were above 37.

BMI is a good tool, however, to find out what your ideal weight should be. The National Institutes of Health has a good BMI calculator.

Your ideal weight is important for this nutrition plan. This is not only because I am committed to helping your body heal and become healthier, but also because extra body weight and obesity can have major negative psychological effects that impair your ability to be optimally healthy.

Your blood pressure ideally should be about 120/80 without medication. If you are on medication you will be delighted to know that this nutrition plan tends to normalize elevated blood pressures in the vast majority of people.

Although elevated insulin levels are one of the most potent contributors to elevated blood pressure, it's also common for stress, tension or anxiety to contribute to this problem. After you begin my nutrition plan and follow it for several months, if you don't see an improvement in your blood pressure you need to seek out a health care professional who is well-versed in using stress-relief methods.

Most people are seriously confused about their cholesterol levels. This is because too much emphasis is placed on the importance of the total cholesterol. A far more important predictor of cardiovascular risk is actually the ratio of good cholesterol (HDL) to total cholesterol.

I use the percentage of HDL and obtain this number by simply dividing the HDL by the total cholesterol (HDL/Total Cholesterol). Ideally this number should be above 24%. Levels below 10 are very dangerous and usually indicate an imminent cardiovascular problem. Ideally this level should be 30 or higher. It rarely gets above 50, but to the best of my knowledge, the higher the number the better. Normally this is not true for a lab value, but because this is a ratio, I believe we can make this assumption.

It is important to note that some clinicians actually obtain this ratio by dividing the total cholesterol by the HDL (Total Cholesterol/HDL). In this case, the numbers should be lower. The cut-off point for a poor ratio would be any number greater than 4 with greater than 10 having serious problems. This number rarely drops below 2.

It's important to note that there are a small subset of individuals born with a genetic condition called familiar hypercholsterolemia (about one in 500 people) in which their cholesterols are typically around 350 or higher. While this program will help to moderate their cholesterol levels, they usually do not normalize with a low insulin program such as this. Learn more about hypercholesterolemia.

If you're using your HDL percentage to figure out when to transition to the intermediate nutrition plan, you must use caution and consult a trained natural health care clinician if your cholesterol is above 350.

You can also use the triglyceride to HDL ratio (Triglyceride/HDL) as another indicator of insulin disturbance. This ratio should be below 2. The higher this number is the worse your insulin control may be.

There does not appear to be a similar genetic condition for triglycerides so you could use the Triglyceride/HDL ratio below 2 as one indication that you are ready to move on to the adaptation phase.

There are valuable and sensitive micronutrients that are damaged when you heat foods. Cooking and processing food can destroy these micronutrients by altering their shape and chemical composition. Regular vegetable juicing will easily help you reach this goal of 1/3 raw food in your diet.

Let us first start out by describing what you can and should definitely eat more of: vegetables. ALL vegetables promote health, unless you are allergic to them or they cause gas or intestinal problems; consult my “Recommended Vegetables” for the healthiest choices, It would be best to consume your vegetables uncooked, but you may have to lightly steam them initially. You should eat about one pound of vegetables every day for every 50 pounds of body weight.

Vegetables contain phytochemicals, which are powerful natural agents to promote health. They will also help to alkalinize your system, as most of us are far to acidic. Most people benefit more from increased vegetables than from extra vitamins. You will normally need a large amount of vegetables to optimize your body's pH acid/alkaline balance

Nearly everyone would benefit from eating as many vegetables as possible within the allowances of their metabolic type design limits, or their unique biochemical individuality. Please remember that you are unique, and your body knows best and will tell you, what is an optimal amount for you. An Eskimo simply can't eat as much vegetables as a Peruvian Indian can. Not only would they feel poorly but they'd likely develop a ravenous appetite matched only by their sweet cravings, as well as who knows what degenerative process and emotional imbalances.

However, a "typical" or "average," amount of vegetables is approximately one pound of vegetables for every 50 pounds of body weight. However it is important to recognize that everyone is unique. Please remember though that this is the average, it is best to eat according to your appetite and fine-tune thereafter.

In other words, let your body report back to you how accurate your appetite/taste buds are at gauging what is right for you.

If you are unable to obtain organic vegetables, you can rinse non-organic vegetables in a sink full of water with 4-8 ounces of distilled vinegar for 30 minutes.

Please be sure and squeeze as much air as you can out of the bag that holds the vegetables and then seal it. The bag should look like it is vacuum-packed.

I do this by holding the bag against my chest and running my arm over the bottom of the bag to the top, which bleeds the air out of the bag.

Eating refined sugar weakens your immune system and promotes yeast overgrowth. All non-diet pops have 8 teaspoons in each can. Most packaged cereals have sugar as their major ingredient. Avoid most natural sweeteners (including corn syrup, fructose, honey, sucrose, maltodextrin, dextrose, molasses, rice milk, almond milk, white grape juice, fruit juice sweetened, brown rice syrup, maple syrup, date sugar, cane sugar, corn sugar, beet sugar, succanat and lactose).

When in doubt about the sugar content of a food you can always look at the list of ingredients and see how many grams of carbohydrates are listed. Unless the carbohydrates are from aboveground vegetables you should be concerned that they represent sugars that could alter your insulin levels.

Most of us eat large amounts of grains and sugars that cause us to have large amounts of insulin circulating in our blood. When you stop eating grains, your body will take several days to lower your insulin levels. In the meantime the high insulin levels will cause you to have many symptoms such as dizziness, confusion, headaches, and generally feeling miserable.

If you eat every two hours for the first few days of your transition you will be able to avoid this temporary side effect. You will need to eat some protein, such as an egg, piece of chicken, turkey, fish or some seeds along with a vegetable such as a piece of celery, cucumber or red pepper. This will help to prevent hypoglycemia and stabilize your blood sugar.

Even after your system has adjusted, it will be wise to eat 4-6 meals a day. Eating more frequently has been shown to normalize cholesterol levels. It will also help your adrenal glands better regulate cortisol levels.

Many people ask about Equal or Nutrasweet (Aspartame). These artificial sweeteners need to be eliminated. There are more adverse reactions to Nutrasweet reported to the FDA than all other foods and additives combined. In certain individuals, it can have devastating consequences. I do not recommend the herb stevia as a sweetener, most people are addicted to grains and sugars, and stevia will stimulate the carbohydrate/sugar addiction cravings. If you are healthy you can use a few teaspoons of succanat intermittently. One should also avoid artificial chemicals like MSG.

Most people have great difficulty implementing these suggestions unless they sit down once a week (at a time when you are well rested, fresh and relaxed) and plan every meal for the week ahead.

A good rule for working people is to prepare your meals ahead of time. For example, make your lunch for the next day before you go to bed. Also, to know what you will be eating for dinner before you leave the house in the morning. This way you can go to the store or take the appropriate items out of the freezer. This is strongly advised. Those who don't do this will more easily slip back into their old, more comfortable, and less healthy eating habits.

Proteins are nutrients that are essential to the building, maintenance and repair of body tissues such as skin, internal organs and muscle. They are also the major components of our immune system and hormones. Proteins are made up of substances called amino acids -- 22 of which are considered vital for health. The adult body can make 14 of these amino acids, but the other eight, known as essential amino acids, must be obtained from what we eat. Proteins are found in all types of food, but only meat, eggs, cheese and other foods from animal sources contain complete proteins, meaning they provide the eight essential amino acids.

According to my experience, most people don't eat enough protein. A person's protein intake varies and depends on your sex, height, weight and exercise levels. Normal protein intake ranges from 20 to 50 grams at each meal.

Look at the package...If you are eating packaged foods, the number of grams of protein per serving is listed on the package. For whole foods, 3 ounces of most meats will provide about 20 to 25 grams of protein. A 4-ounce hamburger, which is processed, only has about 20 grams of protein while typical lunchmeats have about 5 grams per slice. One egg has about six grams of protein and a cup of milk (not typically recommended) has 8 grams.

The best way to prepare eggs is to not cook them at all, but this is an advanced technique.

Restrict your intake of dairy products...Milk, yogurt and cheese are allowed in this phase but are drastically reduced in the intermediate phase. If you have allergies, consider avoiding all dairy, or at the very least, milk. When eating yogurt, please pay special attention to the carbohydrate content as many contain added sweetener, which dramatically increases the carbohydrate content. Also, low-fat dairy products are densely packed with carbohydrates and should be avoided.

You can eat all meats in this phase...All meats, including lunchmeats, are allowed in this phase. It would be wise to purchase lunchmeats that are preservative-free. You will move toward higher-quality protein sources in the intermediate phase of the program; however, if you want to try two types of meat that come with my highest recommendation and taste as good as, if not better than, prime beef, consider ostrich and bison. Because both ostrich and bison taste great and are very versatile, this is not a difficult switch to make, and yet these are two of the healthiest meats on earth. you can sometimes find them in select health food and grocery stores.

Become aware of your soy intake...All soy products are allowed in this phase, though soy is not, despite a lot of popular belief, really that good for you - amongst other issues, it can weaken your immune system (input the term "soy" in our search engine to find dozens of articles on soy's health drawbacks). Soy products will be excluded in subsequent phases, with the exception of fermented soy products like tempeh, miso and natto.

Think about your fish and seafood intake...All fish and seafood products are allowed in this phase but are progressively eliminated in subsequent phases due to fish and seafood contamination with mercury and other toxins; sadly, seafood and fish, whether from the ocean, lakes and streams, or farm-raised, is all showing signs of such contamination, and so even otherwise healthy fish are now advised against and will be phased out in subsequent phases

Nuts and seeds are okay for now, but...are progressively eliminated in subsequent phases. However, consider lowering your nut intake now if you have:

The only exceptions will be flaxseeds and walnuts, which can be consumed in moderation in future phases as they help you balance your omega-6 and omega-3 fats. (Most Americans consume dangerously low levels of omega-3. Fish oil, which is purified of any contaminants found in fish meat, is the best source of omega-3, as it also contains the essential fatty acids DHA and EPA. Flax seeds and walnuts are amongst the next best choices, though they don't contain DHA and EPA.)

While seeds and nuts are relatively low in carbohydrate, nuts are dense sources of calories and should be used in moderation. Even in this first phase, you can try to phase out other nuts and just consume walnuts and flaxseeds moderately:

Watch your bean and legume intake...If you do not have a problem with insulin, these foods are acceptable in this level. If you have high insulin levels, you will want to avoid beans until you have normal insulin levels. If you have achieved your ideal weight, you can introduce beans. Symptoms of high insulin levels include:

Remember that beans have carbohydrates and are sources of good, but not complete, proteins. Add some additional proteins to your meal if beans are your primary protein source at any meal.

Carbohydrates provide fuel for the body in the form of glucose, which is a sugar. There are two types of carbohydrates -- simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates are sugars, such as the ones found in candy, fruits and baked goods. Complex carbohydrates are starches found in beans, nuts, vegetables and whole grains.

In October, the government released a report that told us that two-thirds of us are either obese or overweight. Folks, we have an epidemic on our hands! This is the result of eating far too many processed foods and believing the low-fat diet myth.

If this is new information for you, it will be very important to read one of the most important articles on the site, Reduce Grains and Sugar to Lose Weight and Improve Health, which discusses the reasons you need to radically reduce the amount of grains in your diet.

What most people don't know is that you don't actually need carbohydrates -- they aren't essential for survival. If you ate no carbohydrates, like many traditional Eskimos do, you would be fine as long as you had enough high-quality protein, fat, water and minerals. While both grains and vegetables are carbohydrates, most grains should be avoided and most vegetables are acceptable. I don't advocate a zero carbohydrate diet, as I believe we all need vegetables to achieve optimal health.

Your body prefers the carbohydrates in vegetables rather than grains because it slows the conversion to simple sugars like glucose and decreases your insulin level. On the other hand grain carbohydrates will increase your insulin levels and interfere with your ability to burn fat..

Find out your insulin level...This step necessitates a trip to your doctor. The test you need to ask for is a fasting blood sugar test, which can also be called an FBS, glucose test or blood sugar levels test. It consists of a small withdrawal of blood after a fasting period of six hours.

A fasting blood glucose level test is very powerful, yet it's one of the least expensive tests in traditional medicine. A normal fasting blood sugar should be around 87 mg/dL.

When the blood sugar rises above 100, I become very concerned with respect to future diabetes. Any fasting blood sugar over 100 suggests insulin resistance and inability to control blood sugar levels.

Diabetes is not usually diagnosed until the blood sugar rises above 126 mg/dL. However, it is my contention that this is far too late in the process. A blood sugar over 100 can usually predict future diabetes that is even 10 or more years down the road.

Scale back, or completely eliminate, all grains, beans and legumes in this phase; the higher your insulin levels, the more ambitious your grain-elimination should be.

Highly processed food products are not recommended, regardless of insulin level. These include:

Avoiding grains frequently causes weight loss. If you don't want to lose weight you can increase grains in your diet, but I strongly recommend that you contact a knowledgeable health care professional that understands insulin and fat biochemistry to help fine-tune your individual program. If you want to eat beans, soak them for 48-72 hours, rinsing every 12 hours prior to cooking them. You can then cook them for 8-12 hours in a crock-pot. These steps ensure that the protein will be more easily digested. Additionally, selecting beans for your blood type may make some sense

Remember this important principle: vegetables are generally good, but not all vegetables are created equal. For example, increasing your vegetable intake with salads is a good start, but I would advise avoiding iceberg lettuce. Why? It has minimal nutritional value. Red and green leaf lettuce, along with romaine lettuce and spinach, provide much more nutritious options. Also, finding organic vegetables is important. However, if you can't obtain organics, any vegetable is better than no vegetable! Take care with non-organic vegetables by washing them and removing peels and cores when possible.

It's best to avoid sweeteners whenever possible, but for the beginning level the following sweeteners are acceptable:

You may use artificial sweeteners at this level, but please avoid Nutrasweet (aspartame). There are more adverse reactions to Nutrasweet reported to the FDA than all other foods and additives combined. In certain individuals, it can have devastating consequences. If you are healthy you can use a few teaspoons of succanat intermittently.

It is helpful to avoid artificial chemicals like MSG. You can use sucralose, acesulfame K and saccharine in moderation. Using a sweetener like stevia is preferable, but any of these sweeteners will likely increase sugar cravings in the majority of people using them so use them with extreme caution. Please be sensitive to changes in your body, especially if you notice an increase in your sugar or grain cravings and consider stopping them if you notice those changes.

Did you know that your brain is about 60 percent fat? The fats you eat strongly influence your level of brain function. Some nutritional anthropologists believe the human brain would not have developed as it did without access to high levels of DHA (a type of fat) found in fish and wild game. Just two generations of high omega-6 and low omega-3 fats can lead to profound changes in brain size and function.

Fat is made of fatty acids attached to a substance called glycerol. Fats play an important role in the body; they are essential to build cell membranes, clot blood, absorb vitamins, cushion vital organs and protect us from extreme temperatures.

Learning about fats can be confusing. When you go to the grocery store, you're confronted with advertisements telling you that a product is low in fat, or a product is made with partially hydrogenated oil. To make sense of all the labels, I've compiled the following list of definitions for you:

Let's start with the most important element of your diet: Water! Water makes up more than 70 percent of your body's tissues and plays a role in nearly every body function from regulating temperature and cushioning joints to bringing oxygen to the cells and removing waste from the body. Therefore, it's vital to pay attention to what you drink.

Drink 1 quart of water for every 50 pounds of body weight per day. Drinking enough water is one of the most simple, basic, and important health steps you can take. Your body needs 1 quart of water per 50 pounds of body weight to function at an optimal level. If you normally don't drink enough water, you'll have to build up your water intake gradually to prevent running to the bathroom every few minutes. Your bladder will adjust to this level after a short period of time, and you can keep increasing your water intake until you reach optimal levels. Try increasing your intake on this schedule:

If you drink the recommended amount of water, you can easily avoid dehydration, which can have profound effects on your health. Dehydration can cause:

Drink your water at the right pace. It's important to sip water all day long. Depending on your size, your body can only process a bit more than a glass of water per hour. If you drink much more than this at one sitting, the extra water will not be used, but merely flushed down the toilet bowl. So keep your water bottle with you all day long. This way you can confirm precisely how much water you are drinking.

Drink healthy water. Healthy water? I bet you thought all water was healthy! Don't be tricked! Healthy water is only water that has been treated to avoid contamination. Nearly all municipal water supplies have chlorine and fluoride added. Europeans have known for many years that fluoride is toxic and have long since removed it from their water supplies. Be sure and obtain a filter to avoid chlorine and fluoride. Unhealthy aresenic levels are in about 5 percent of the water supplies and can cause you health problems. Additionally, thousands of tons of drugs are flushed down the toilet, and many wind up in your water supply, as most filtration plants aren't designed to remove them.

You can use lemon juice to add a bit of flavor and normalize your body's pH level.

You can add lemon juice to your water occasionally to help flavor it and normalize your body's pH if you're too acidic. However, be careful not to use the lemon juice continuously or you run the risk of developing an allergy to it.

If you have a water softener, you need to divert the softened water away from the kitchen tap to a reverse osmosis system. If you have municipal water you will also want to add a filter to your shower to remove the chlorine, as this exposure could actually be greater than exposure from drinking your water. If you are on your own well, this is not necessary.

If you have problems with sugar cravings, some people have found chromium to be useful to control it. However, please be aware that it is far more likely that your sugar cravings are related to consuming extra carbohydrates or emotional issues.

Avoid iron in your supplements. Please avoid iron in all your supplements unless your serum ferritin is decreased. It is rarely needed and can be quite toxic. Even then I would advise against supplemental iron unless you can't eat red meat. If you must take supplemental iron please make sure it is carbonyl iron as that is the safest form currently on the market.

While nothing can substitute for the health benefits of real vegetables, I do understand that sometimes people’s hectic lifestyles simply make consuming the proper meals impossible, especially if you are into the healthy habit of vegetable juicing. I would first urge you to reevaluate the prime importance of your health and try to prioritize your healthy eating accordingly -- when it comes down to it, health is the basis of life, as it provides energy, longevity, avoidance of disease, and the ability to focus on other areas, so what is really more important than eating properly?

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin. It's found in food, but also can be made in your body after exposure to ultraviolet rays from the sun. The major function of vitamin D in your body is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus. During the summer months, you will get enough vitamin D from just spending some time outside every day.

In the winter months, though, you will most likely not get enough vitamin D if you don't live in place that is sunny a lot of the time (such as the southwest U.S.). In that case, I strongly recommend cod liver oil, which is high in vitamin D and omega-3 (an essential fatty acid most Americans are in dire need of)

Be careful with Tylenol. If you take Tylenol regularly, you should be on N-acetyl cysteine to prevent organ damage.

To get a good night's sleep, it's important to sleep in complete darkness. I suggest:

At a bare minimum, everyone should exercise for 30 minutes per day. If you need to lose weight, it is important to exercise at least 60 minutes every day. Also note that, if you are diabetic, you will not be able to control your diabetes without exercise as part of your regime. If you are just beginning exercise, work up to 60 minutes slowly; you can combine several shorter exercise periods to reach your daily 60 minutes. There is a synergy with diet and exercise that is incredible. You will not be able to control diabetes without exercise.

Swimming is one of the best exercises on the planet, but if you are like most people your only option is swimming in a chlorinated pool. I strongly advise avoiding this since you will absorb more chlorine by swimming in a chlorinated pool than you would by drinking tap water for one week. Swimming in a lake, ocean or other natural water body is recommended. Peroxide (not bromine) is also an alternative for chlorine in your pool, and a product called Baquacil is available at most pool stores.

I know, this sounds unusual. This is generally the first thing most health professionals ask you to do. What you may not know is that sugar is a far more dangerous influence to your health than cigarettes.

It is more important to stop eating sugar before you stop smoking. If you try to do both at once you will most likely fail. I want you to start feeling better before you even think about stopping smoking. I do recommend that everyone should stop smoking, but taking on the task of quitting should only be done once you have an optimal diet in place and you are already feeling good.

Minimize the unnecessary use of drugs, and seek safe and effective alternatives when possible. Especially troublesome are antibiotics, anti-ulcer drugs, birth control pills or estrogen for menopause unless you are having hot flashes. If you take Tylenol regularly, you should be on N-acetyl cysteine to prevent organ damage.

Remember eggs? it's time to move up to organic eggs. Organic eggs don't have to be certified, so if you are fortunate enough to know someone who is growing chickens and controls the food and conditions, those eggs are typically better than organic store-bought eggs. However, if you only get one organic food it should be eggs. Non-organic eggs are acceptable, but less than optimal.

An interesting fact about eggs: You can increase your egg intake up to two dozen a week, as your cholesterol level won't increase. The best way to prepare eggs is to not cook them at all. Eggs are one of the richest sources of dietary cholesterol, so the way you cook them will influence the level of oxidized cholesterol in your blood. Oxidized cholesterol contributes to hardening of the arteries and increases your risk of heart disease. High heat will promote this oxidation. Since there is iron in the egg white, when it combines with the egg yolk that will also oxidize the cholesterol. Scrambled eggs or omelets are one of the worst ways to prepare eggs. The best way to prepare eggs is to not cook the egg yolk at all. In the advanced technique, you will want your yolks runny and intact until just prior to eating.

Eliminate all fish from your diet, unless you know they have been tested and are free of harmful mercury.

Fish, whether farm-raised or caught from the ocean or freshwater sources, should now be avoided, as almost all fish are contaminated with mercury, PCBs and DDT. The only exceptions to this rule are 1) sardines and anchovies, as they are small enough to have minimal contamination; 2) fish that you know have been tested and shown not to contain harmful levels of mercury and other toxins. Instead of consuming fish, it is now best to obtain the important omega-3 fats with DHA and EPA fatty acids from fish or cod liver oil. Reputable fish oil/cod liver oil, like the Carlson brand is purified of mercury and all other contaminants and tested and certified by independent agents for that high purity.

Another way you can receive the necessary omega-3 fats is eating meat that is allowed to range free. Most wild game fit this description, but is not readily available for most us. Grass-fed beef or poultry are reasonable alternatives. Range-fed poultry is available from most health food stores or local farmers growing chickens. You must also be careful when purchasing grass-fed beef at most stores. Many advertised grass-fed beef is not. Please remember: all cattle are grass fed, but the key is what they are fed during the months prior to being processed. Cattle are routinely shipped to giant feedlots and fed corn to fatten them up. You will need to call the person who actually raised the cow, not the store manager, to find out the truth about your beef. The least expensive way to obtain authentic grass-fed beef is to find a farmer you can trust who is growing the beef, and then buy a half a side of beef from him. This way you save the shipping and also receive a reduced rate on the meat. An inexpensive yet effective way to determine if the meat is really from a grass fed animal is to purchase the ground beef. Slowly cook the beef until done, drain and then collect all the fat. Grass-fed beef fat will be relatively thin compared to traditionally prepared ground beef. It will also be a liquid at room temperature as it has very few saturated fats. However, most of us live in large urban areas and do not have the time for this process. Just as it would be ideal to have an organic garden and grow your own vegetables, most of us elect not to do that due to time or space limitations. One great way to get grass-fed beef is through Grassfed Organics.

Soy is the latest craze in health foods, but I recommend avoiding soy unless it is fermented or sprouted. Most soy is not a health food! Although it has many beneficial properties, it also has digestive enzyme inhibitors that will impair your ability to break down protein. It also contains phytic acid, which will bind minerals. Fermented soy (tempeh, natto and miso) and soybean sprouts don't have these problems. You should avoid tofu, soy protein products, soymilk and especially soy baby formula, which should never be used for infants. At this level you should avoid all non-fermented soy products. You can review the material on soy for further details on why this food should be avoided unless fermented. If you use protein powders, it's important to avoid soy protein.

Except for walnuts, almost all nuts have high levels of omega-6 fats, and if eaten in excess they can unbalance the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats in your body. Unless you are already very healthy, it is important for you to limit your use of most seeds and nuts. Sprouting them would help somewhat, but unbalancing the omega 6:3 ratio can have profound negative health consequences for your body. Most all of us already have an excess of omega-6 fats in our diet.

It is clear that most people benefit from avoiding commercial milk that is loaded with hormones, pesticides and antibiotics. However, even if you are able to obtain organic milk that is free of these contaminants, you are still left with a food that is pasteurized and homogenized. Pasteurization is done to protect you from potentially dangerous infections like TB and brucellosis, but it unfortunately changes the structure of the milk proteins, particularly casein, to a far more allergenic food and is a major reason why milk allergies are the number one form of food allergy. You need to eliminate milk if you haven't already done so. You can have cheeses, particularly raw milk cheeses, if your body tolerates them well.

I recommend that all of your vegetables be organic. Organic varieties of vegetables will decrease your exposure to dangerous pesticides. Additionally, they have two to five times more nutrients as compared to non-organic vegetables. Most people agree that they also taste much better. It is important to remember though that nearly any non-organic vegetable is better than no vegetable at all.

I believe that most people's health is improved by avoiding all grains. This also includes durham flour and semolina from which most pasta is made. You can obtain most of your fiber from vegetables, which is a far healthier choice. Additional foods to eliminate at this level are:

Most of us are addicted to grains, so this is best done as soon as you are ready to implement the approach. A gradual reduction just won't work for most people as your insulin levels will continue to increase. This means that your cravings for sugars and grains will be high, and you will not reap the benefits of lowered insulin levels. It's important to normalize your insulin levels so you can remove the distorted signals your body has been giving you all these years. Once you are off all grains and sugars for a week, your body may tell you that you need to resume them, but most people benefit from remaining off of them for some time. You will know. Your body will make this very clear. If your energy level is dramatically improved and most of your health complaints are gone or significantly better, then this is a giant clue that you are on the right path. If you are not better, you will want to consider reintroducing small amounts of grains back into your diet.

If you are overweight, you have likely trained your hormone system to respond very aggressively to sweets. As soon as anything sweet hits your mouth your body will instantly release insulin. This occurs even when it does not need it, such as when you are using low calorie natural sweetener like stevia. Pavlov proved this principle over 100 years ago. He began to feed his dogs in association with the ringing of a bell. After a certain time the dogs were shown to salivate profusely in association with the ringing bell even when the actual sight or smell of food was not present. Pavlov regarded this salivation as being a conditioned reflex and designated the process by which the dogs had picked up this reflex classical conditioning. You have also experienced this conditioning. You've developed a link between your taste buds and your brain that will cause your body to produce insulin the moment you eat anything sweet, even if it is not grains or sugar. This will sabotage your efforts to lose weight successfully, as you will keep on having cravings for sugar and grains. It's just a matter of re-educating your taste buds. It will be essential to have no sweets for few weeks; once you clean your palate of grains, foods will taste better than ever. You can use this as an opportunity to explore the use of spices and organic foods, as they typically taste much better once you eliminate your body's response to sugar.

Don't drink fluids with your meals if possible, as this will dilute the gastric digestive contents and make it more difficult to digest. A few sips of water during the meal would be fine.

A food scientist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University has worked out the recipe for a sanitizing solution. All you need is three percent hydrogen peroxide, the same strength available at the drug store for gargling or disinfecting wounds, plain white or apple cider vinegar, and a pair of brand new clean sprayers like the kind you use to dampen laundry before ironing.

This Next Few Pages, may be inappropriate for the vast number of people who are reading it.It should be reserved only for those with the most serious health challenges or for those who are absolutely committed to achieving the highest level of health possible. It will improve not only the length of your life, but the quality of your later years

This is the last step with eggs: it's time to not cook your yolks at all, and use the entire egg raw. If you're concerned about salmonella, there is little reason to as only one in 30,000 eggs in the US are contaminated with salmonella. If you do get salmonella, a relatively benign, self-limiting illness, it is easily treated in most people with some good bacteria. Most people in this level have a good enough immune system to counteract salmonella, so this isn't likely to be a problem.

For most people it's very important to stop all commercial milk products. Not all people need to stop dairy, but most people seem to benefit from cutting it out of their diet. I recommend that you avoid dairy for a few weeks to see if your health symptoms improve. Avoid commercial milk products like:

Please note that many people can tolerate raw milk (non-pasteurized), and in fact, it is a strong producer of health for many. However it it's difficult to obtain and you would need to purchase this directly from a dairy famer as it is illegal to sell commercially in most states.. Cheese may be acceptable unless you have a severe dairy allergy. Raw milk cheeses are better and generally available in health food stores as they are legal to purchase.

Pigs are scavenger animals and are frequently contaminated with parasites that aren't removed through the cooking process. It would be best to avoid all ham and pork products. Pork can be heavily contaminated with mold spores in its fat and is also used in labs to culture cancer cells, because it increases their growth.

Bison and ostrich are two of the absolute best meat options, as they are both very healthy, taste absolutely fantastic, and are available as free-ranged with no antibiotics or hormones. you can sometimes find them in select health food and grocery stores. Grass-fed beef is another excellent option, and venison and lamb are also good options since they are game animals and generally have few pesticides. Chicken and turkey are also acceptable.

I advise people as this level to avoid and eliminate all shellfish (lobsters, crabs, shrimp, etc) since they are scavengers, and so are frequently contaminated with parasites and viruses.

Peanuts are especially problematic, as they have no omega-3 and distort your omega 6:3 ratio and are frequently contaminated with pesticides.

At this advanced level, you need not be obsessive about sugar; if sugar is the fourth or fifth ingredient in your food, that's acceptable. Many people, however, need to avoid sugar permanently for optimal health. Sugar addiction is similar to alcohol addiction in that it requires total abstinence. Limiting sugar is critical to your optimal health. Eating refined sugar weakens your immune system and promotes yeast overgrowth. All non-diet (regular soda) pops have 8 teaspoons in each can. Most packaged cereals have sugar as their major ingredient.

If you must have some sugar, raw honey (not from the grocery store) would be the best choice and is best eaten with a large meal, not alone or between meals.

Anything sweetened with fruit juice
Beet sugar
Brown rice syrup
Cane sugar
Corn sugar
Corn syrup
Date sugar
Dextrose
Fructose

Honey
Lactose
Maltodextrin
Maple syrup
Molasses
Ice milk
Succanat
Sucrose
White grape juice

When in doubt about the sugar content of a food you can always look at the list of ingredients and see how many grams of carbohydrates are listed. Unless the carbohydrates are from above ground vegetables you should be concerned that they represent sugars that could alter your insulin levels.

You may know intuitively that coffee is not the best fluid to drink but not really understand why. Here are several reasons to eliminate coffee from your diet:

If you are struggling with food changes, you can leave coffee at the bottom of the list. However, quitting coffee should be one of your goals. Coffee should never be consumed if you are pregnant or have high blood pressure, insomnia or anxiety.

Here are a few tips to help reduce the chance of harmful effects until you can completely eliminate it:

While moderate wine consumption -- one to two glasses per day -- can have health benefits, all alcohol use impairs driving performance and can pose significant health and safety risks. I don't normally recommend it for most people. I believe alcohols should be reserved for people who are at no risk of alcohol addiction and have already achieved optimal wellness, and therefore have their carbohydrates (sugars and grains) under control.

Store-bought fruit juices are frequently contaminated with mold and therefore we should avoid them. They also contain a large amount of refined carbohydrates. Each 12-ounce glass of juice has about the same amount of sugar (8 teaspoons) as a 12-ounce glass of soda, even if no sugar is added. Sports drinks, such as Gatorade, must also be avoided.

Milk is a major source of vitamin D for many people. As you've stopped eating commercial milk and milk products, make sure you are getting enough vitamin D from other sources. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin. It's found in food, but also can be made in your body after exposure to ultraviolet rays from the sun. The major function of vitamin D in your body is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus. During the summer months, you will get enough vitamin D from just spending some time outside every day. In the winter months, though, you will most likely not get enough vitamin D if you don't live in place that is sunny a lot of the time (such as the southwest U.S.). In that case, I strongly recommend cod liver oil, which is high in vitamin D and omega-3 (an essential fatty acid most Americans are in dire need of) -- because cod liver oil can vary greatly in quality, It is possible to overdose with vitamin D, so avoid taking it when you are having plenty of sun exposure.

Although the vast majority of people seem to benefit from vitamin E, that certainly is not universally true. For most it seems a reasonable supplement to take at about 400 units as it has reduces the rate of fat oxidation. However a recent study suggested that if you consume plenty of vegetables, the antioxidants in the vegetables may provide as much or more protection that vitamin E.

If you are off all milk products, you should consider a calcium supplement. Vegetable juice has plenty of calcium, and if you take it with cod liver oil the vitamin D will help you absorb all the calcium you need. If you are unable to drink the vegetable juice and you can tolerate citrus fruits, you can use calcium citrate as your calcium source. If you are a protein Metabolic type calcium is an especially important supplement for you and you may want to consider a regular supplement unless you are consuming raw dairy.

I am not fond of recommending supplements routinely, but I do believe that antioxidants make sense

Clinically, lipoic acid seems to be a useful supplement in treating hepatitis C. It can also be used for painful nerve conditions in diabetes, and there is suggestion that it might slow down the aging process through its reduction in free radicals.

I wish I had been aware of lipoic acid when I pursued my former and exclusive health passion, exercise. I am sure I caused considerable harm with some of the excessive exercising and running I did in the 70s and early 80s. I did not take antioxidants at that time, and, worse still, I consumed plenty of whole grain bread and steel-cut oatmeal that further raised my insulin levels. I would have considerably more hair left, I suspect, if I had recognized the dual nature of excessive exercise. It can be a potent stimulus to good health, but it can also be overdone and actually accelerate the aging process.

I routinely take vitamin C and lipoic acid (100 mg) prior to my runs. Since they are primarily water-soluble they should be taken close to the time of exercise. Vitamin E can be taken once a day, or even once a week, as it is fat-soluble. Keep in mind I take these supplements as a form of insurance, as vegetables have plenty of lipoic acid and other nutrients like carnitine that are particularly helpful in burning fat.

In reality, most people are harmed by low-salt diets. However, you don't want to use your current table salt. Instead, obtain "real salt." The difference between conventional and "real salt" is that conventional salt is dried at over 1200 degrees Fahrenheit. This amount of heat changes the chemical structure of the salt. Also, conventional processing adds harmful additives and chemicals. When you do obtain "real salt," please use it liberally on your greens, such as kale, to decrease any bitter taste. If you need to avoid salt, lemon crystals and lemon pepper are great replacements and give food a mouth-watering zing.

You aren’t consuming sugar, and your diet is very healthy overall. Now is the time to quit smoking.

Microwaves can seriously deplete the nutrients in food. It's no surprise that microwave heating of food results in losses of nutrients because all heating methods have a similar effect. However, microwave heating appears to produce the greatest losses. Microwaves are high frequency electromagnetic waves that alternate in positive and negative directions causing vibration of food molecules up to 2.5 billion times per second. This creates friction and heat that can destroy the fragile structure of vitamins and enzymes. Microwaves may also cause pathological changes in your body. Once a food's structure is altered, it cannot perform the desired function in your body. Clinical studies show that microwave heating of milk or cooking of vegetables is associated with a decline in hemoglobin levels. These reductions may contribute to anemia, rheumatism, fever and thyroid deficiency.

If you currently use antiperspirants, look and see if you notice a stain in the armpit area of your shirts. This is not due to your sweat but is from the aluminum in the antiperspirant. I don't recommend using conventional antiperspirants, as they are full of aluminum, which is a toxic substance. You can wash your armpits daily with soap and a washcloth as an alternative. Normally, washing is sufficient to remove all traces of odor. If you still find odor to be a problem, store a small box of baking soda in your bathroom medicine box. Before each shower, pour a teaspoon of powder in your hand, close your hand with the baking soda and step into the shower. After you step into the shower, briefly let the shower water seep into your closed hand then apply the moistened baking soda to each armpit. You can then rinse the armpits and begin your regular shower routine. If the above measures don't work, you could also use grain alcohol or vodka in a spray bottle and squirt it under your arms. This will kill the bacteria that causes odor. However, this should be a last resort, as when you shift your diet the types of bacteria growing there will change and then the odor will naturally decrease.

Getting a good night's sleep was covered in the Basic level of the nutrition plan, but, as it is so important to sleep in complete darkness, here are some further suggestions to implement now if you haven’t already done so:

With the invention of new technology, we are all spending more time indoors and out of the sun. We all should strive to have one hour of sunshine a day. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. the sun is the strongest. This is the time you should try to get outside in the winter. In the summer, you should be careful of your time outdoors in order to avoid sunburn. Sunburn, not sun exposure, can cause skin cancer. Noontime sun (for people in climates that are not tropical or subtropical) is the best. You just need to exercise caution with your exposure. Sunlight into your retina is also a very important nutrient. You will get the full benefits if you do not obstruct the light with glasses or contacts. Make sure you understand the risks of sun cancer versus your sunlight needs. Of course we should not get burned or look directly into the sun; but small amounts of daily sunshine on our skin and in our eyes is essential for good health! You can combine sun exposure with a brisk walk to satisfy your exercise requirements. If you have problems that worsen in the winter, consider installing full spectrum lighting in your bathroom, kitchen, eating area and work environment. This will compensate for the loss of sun on your skin during the winter. They are also available for incandescent fixtures. One note: Do not use neodium bulbs, as they are color-corrected and therefore don't qualify as full spectrum lighting.

Please avoid low frequency (60 hertz) pulsating electromagnetic fields such as those found in electric blankets and waterbed heaters. Also, avoid electric razors and close exposure to any AC/DC transformer for appliances you plug into a wall, and do not carry keys that open your car doors with radio waves in your pocket. Wearing metal on your body is something you generally want to avoid. If you are a woman who is wearing underwire bras, please consider removing the wire from the bra. This can be done be snipping the fabric and pulling out the wire. The wire can form an antenna attracting EMF fields and can actually increase your risk of breast cancer. If you need the extra support that the wire provided, you can go to a fabric store and purchase some boning material, which can be gently heated in a flame to form it into the shape needed and then inserted back into the bra. Anything else that you use on the body, such as hair rollers, pins and clips, should also be changed to plastic.

If you are a woman having difficulties with your periods or are past the age of 50 or a man with prostate problems, you may want to consider natural progesterone supplementation. Dr. Lee's book, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About PRE Menopause, is an inexpensive paperback that goes into greater detail. The book covers all aspects of female hormones, not just menopause.

I've said this in the other levels of this nutrition plan, but it's so important I'll say it again: There are valuable and sensitive micronutrients that are damaged when you heat foods. Cooking and processing food destroys these micronutrients by altering their shape and chemical composition. In this advanced level, you avoid all processed foods and eat only organic vegetables and fruits unless not otherwise possible.

There are three main reasons why you will want to consider incorporating vegetable juicing into your health program:

1. You probably have a compromised intestine. Most of us have compromised intestines as a result of less than optimal food choices over many years. This limits your body's ability to absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. Juicing will help to "pre-digest" them for you so you will receive most of the nutrition rather than having it go down the toilet.

3. Nobody wants to eat that many salads. If you eat the vegetables like a salad then you will be having far too many salads. This violates the principle of regular food rotation and increases your chance of developing an allergy to a certain food.

If you are new to juicing, it's best to start out with an inexpensive juicer. The benefit to this is that if you decide you do not want to continue you will not be out a large amount of money. There are some things to watch for, however. Inexpensive centrifugal juicers produce low quality juice and are very loud, which may contribute to hearing loss. They are probably fine for short-term use.

Many poeple felt they would have a problem with juicing, but they found that it was much better than they thought it would be. This is partly related to the fact that you should only start by juicing vegetables that you enjoy eating non-juiced. The juice should taste pleasant and not make you nauseous.

It is very important to listen to your body when juicing. Your stomach should be very happy all morning long. If it is churning or growling or generally making its presence known, you probably juiced something you should not be eating. Personally, I've noticed that I can't juice large amounts of cabbage, but if I spread it out, I do fine.

Vegetable juice is a great breakfast when balanced with some essential oils and a bit of chlorella. Please remember that vegetable juice and fruit juices are two completely different substances in terms of nutrition. I am confident that fruit juices should be avoided. Although vegetable juice is processed, it doesn't raise insulin levels like fruit juice. The only exceptions would be carrot and beet juice (and most vegetables that grow underground), which function similarly to fruit juice.

When you juice, you will produce pulp. What should you do with it? It's best to mix it in with the juice and consume it. In my experience when I first started juicing, I would juice every day, and my stools would frequently become loose. Once I started adding the pulp fiber back into my juice, this problem went away. There is a benefit to eating the fiber, as it serves as fertilizer for the good bacteria in the colon.

Eating the pulp increases the time it takes to consume the juice, but it is healthier. One can gradually add the pulp back in over time to get used to it. If you add the entire pulp back in, the mixture becomes almost like a green vegetable porridge that can be eaten with a spoon.

The method I currently use is to drink about 75 percent of the juice and then pour the other 25 percent of the juice back into the pulp. I add some ground seeds into the mixture, stir it up and eat it like porridge.

Now that you're ready for the benefits of vegetable juice, you need to know what to juice. I recommend starting out with these vegetables, as they are the easiest to digest:

These aren't as beneficial as the more nutritionally intense dark green vegetables. Once you get used to these, you can start adding the more nutritionally valuable, but less palatable, vegetables into your juice.

Vegetables to avoid include carrots and beets. Most people who juice usually use carrots. The reason they taste so good is that they are full of sugar. I would definitely avoid all vegetables that grow underground to avoid an increase in your insulin levels.

If you are healthy, you can add about one pound of carrots or beets per week. I do believe that the deep, intense colors of these foods provide additional benefits for many that are just not available in the green vegetables listed above.

When you've acclimatized yourself to juicing, you can start adding these vegetables:

An interesting side note: Cabbage juice is one of the most healing nutrients for ulcer repair as it is a huge source of vitamin U. The "Eat Right for Your Type" approach does not support lectin compatibility for blood type A individuals like myself and so I avoid it.

When you're ready, move on to adding herbs to your juicing. Herbs also make wonderful combinations, and there are two that work exceptionally well:

You need to be cautious with cilantro, as many cannot tolerate it well. If you are new to juicing, hold off. These are more challenging vegetables to consume, but they are highly beneficial.

When purchasing collard greens, find a store that sells the leaves still attached to the main stalk. If they are cut off, the vegetable rapidly loses many of its valuable nutrients.

One important note: I prefer to juice my vegetables at room temperature. I leave my vegetables out overnight, or for at least one hour in the morning, as I do not enjoy drinking cold fluids, especially when it is cold outside.

Balance your juice with protein and fat. Vegetable juice does not have much protein or fat, so it's very important for you to include these fat and protein sources with your meal.

There is a potential problem with using the entire raw egg if you are pregnant. Biotin deficiency, a common concern in pregnancy, could be made worse by consuming whole raw eggs.

If you have high iron or vitamin D levels you will want to avoid chlorella though as it is loaded with both of these nutrients.

The reason why fat is important is that green vegetables contain vitamin K, which is very important for gluing the calcium into your bone matrix. Additionally, new research suggests that vitamin K significantly reduces calcification in the arteries. However, vitamin K is not absorbed very well unless there is some fat. Additionally, the vitamin D in the cod liver oil will work with the vitamin K to increase calcium absorption and build stronger bones. The dose for cod liver oil or fish oil is one teaspoon for every 25 to 40 pounds of body weight. Adding raw egg yolks, as described above, will also help you to absorb all the vitamin K from the juice. You could also use flax as a source of omega-3 fat, but many people have problems digesting it.

If you would like to make your juice taste a bit more palatable, especially in the beginning, you can add these elements:

Juicing is a time-consuming process, so you'll probably be thinking to yourself, "I wonder if I can juice first thing and then drink it later?" This isn't a great idea. Vegetable juice is very perishable so it's best to drink all of your juice immediately. However, if you're careful you can store it for up to 24 hours with only moderate nutritional decline. To store your juice:

1. Put your juice in a glass jar with an airtight lid and fill it to the very top. There should be a minimum amount of air in the jar as the oxygen in air (air is about 20 percent oxygen) will "oxidize" and damage the juice.

2. Wrap the jar with aluminum foil to block out all light. Light damages the juice.

3. Store it in the refrigerator until about 30 minutes prior to drinking, as vegetable juice should be consumed at room temperature.

Most people juice in the morning, but if that does not work out well for your schedule please feel the freedom to choose whatever meal works out best for your lifestyle.

We all know that if a juicer takes longer than 10 minutes to clean, we'll find excuses not to do it. I find that using an old toothbrush works well to clean any metal grater. For the Omega 8002, the whole process takes about 5 minutes. Whatever you do, you need to clean your juicer immediately after you juice to prevent any remnants from contaminating the juicer with mold growth.

The age-old debate still rages, peppered with a wide diversity of opinions and philosophies across the contemporary “rainbow” of healthy diets. What, in the final analysis, really is the best, healthiest diet for us to consume--a predominantly raw- or cooked-food diet? This is a dynamic subject, but the evidence may surprise you.

To shed some light on this debate, we can take a look at some common food facts from history. While there is a growing consensus today that eating raw food is healthier, the fact is, throughout history all cultures have modified, “cooked” or altered the energy field of their foods in some way. This is one of the 11 fundamental Characteristics of Traditional Diets, based on extensive research on so-called primitive cultures throughout the world by Dr. Weston Price in the 1930s. Even the most primitive tribe discovered in our time, The Tasaday of the Philippines, who had no wheel or weapons, did have fire, which they started with wooden sticks and used to roast wild yams and other foods.

This makes sense from a functional standpoint. Warmth, moisture, darkness, time--these are the elements of cooking. Whether through the application of heat (boiling, baking, frying, etc.), microorganisms (fermenting or pickling), mechanics (juicing, chopping), activation (sprouting) or preservation (canning, freezing, salting or drying, milling or other processing), “cooking” or altering foods is invariably a form of predigestion.

This applies, as well, to the human body itself. For whether it’s accomplished outside the body by chopping or processing before eating, or through the body’s own warmth, moisture, darkness and digestive processes after eating, the fact is we have to break down and “cook” or process our food in some way in order to be able to absorb and assimilate it.

Cooking contracts vegetable foods, concentrating more nutrients with less bulk. Bitter greens like turnip greens and collards, traditionally prepared by lengthy stewing, are generally more edible when cooked. Cooking also eliminates the oxalic acid, which binds and interferes with calcium absorption.

Beyond simple preservation, cooking has a variety of profound metabolic, as well as psycho-spiritual, effects on humans. Fire equals warmth for survival, protection, community, socializing, togetherness, as well as for making foods more ready for digestion. Its application depends on a host of factors, including season, locality, heritage, genetics and customs.

In Food and Healing, Anne Marie Colbin points out that for most people cooking supports mental concentration better than expansive salads with many different ingredients by saying, “The advantage of fire may have resulted in the development of civilization by mental focus and concentration.” Cooking food for eating obviously has a long history in the annals of human existence.

There is no question that cooking deactivates some vital nutrients, including enzymes, but cooking also makes digestion less stressful. Many people with poor digestion don’t handle raw foods or beans very well, which is in part why macrobiotic diets may have worked for some people recovering from various maladies. The higher proportion of nutrients in raw food is useless if the food can’t be digested, absorbed and assimilated.

So there are tradeoffs in each case. Ultimately it comes down to the individual situation … and a matter of balance.

That’s ostensibly why dieticians have been saying eat a “balanced” diet with a variety of foods. Yet, this is only a partial truth, too often typical of standard scientific fact. It’s not only the total quantity, but also the quality of the food that is critically important, along with how it’s grown, treated, processed and handled; how it’s stored and packaged, prepared, cooked, overcooked or denatured; and how our own bodies individually process and handle it.

As Dr. Gabriel Cousins says, “There is so much we do not understand about the subtleties of nutrition that we are essentially shooting in the dark when we start to alter and process our foods.”

It’s actually ironic that we should even have to engage in an intellectual debate about this subject, since ostensibly we should KNOW, without having to think about it, what the optimum fuel for our personal vehicle--our body--is. This just shows us how far OFF we are, how out of tune and out of touch we are with our own bodies. Animals, for example, don’t read articles or have to study about what to eat.

They are instinctually attuned to their own needs without having the “gift” of being able to intellectualize about it. They eat only when hungry. When they’re sick, they don’t eat, or eat grasses, even if they are omnivores like dogs, while we “smart” humans who know so much usually end up being forced to listen to our bodies only when they’re shouting with pain or discomfort.

Even then, we just want to stop the pain as fast as possible. And without training in biochemistry or medicine, we tend to fall back on following the advice of outside “experts” instead of listening to the messages our bodies are continually trying to give us.

While nutritional science is complex and admittedly complicated, it’s not rocket science. The bottom line is that we really don’t need to be a food company biochemist or a medical specialist to know what works best for our own systems, especially when it comes to what we eat. The fact is, all too often, the messages from the so-called “experts” are confusing, conflicting, and often counterproductive, and end up pointing us the wrong way--usually in the direction of their bottom line, to say nothing of the current political reality involved in the “revolving door” between industry and government.

As Cousens says, “There is no necessity to sell out our health and shorten our lives so that someone else can profit from marketing so-called longer shelf life, modern, convenient foods.”

Ironically, it appears that the more tinkering and altering done to extend the shelf life of our food, the shorter our own lives. So one has to ask, are we giving our modern foods a longer shelf life and shortening our own? Dr. Janet Starr Hull puts it rather curtly, but succinctly, when she says, “People need to stop searching for excuses to eat all the junk food they want without penalty. In the long run, no one benefits from this product but the corporations.”

Raw plant foods are rich in oxidizing, alkalinizing chlorophyll. They also just naturally have more vitality, more of the “life force” energy that researchers are discovering responsible for “recharging” our cellular batteries, as well as enabling an acceleration of individual frequencies to allow more access to higher spiritual energies and information. This also provides insight, moving us closer toward a scientific understanding of the meaning of the term “the spiritualization of matter.”

Taking supplements of isolated nutrients combined in a pill or capsule is not the same as getting nutrition from whole, natural, live foods. Even if the essential nutrients are included, nutritional supplements are almost always acidic, whereas live foods, especially greens, are alkalinizing.

Live foods contain a specific balance of natural forces that are programmed to affect the body in a particular way. That is, plant foods like vegetables have a wholeness and integrity that is more than just a collection of proteins, minerals, and vitamins found within them. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

While the government has made landmark victories out of its successes in abolishing the sale of raw milk products in many states on the grounds of “safety,” it ignores the fact that pasteurization literally destroys the enzymes in dairy products needed for their use. At the same time, it has permitted the routine feeding of animal wastes and dead animal parts to feedlot cattle, now shown to contribute to wide-scale problems with contaminated meats. Salmonella in eggs, another issue, may have become an exaggerated concern, according to John R. Roth, a professor of biology at the University of Utah, who has been studying Salmonella for 40 years. According to him, “Probably it exists in very many organisms at a low level where it’s not a pathogen but living as part of the gut flora. The idea of banishing it is absurd.”

While it is more challenging to acquire raw dairy foods, it is still possible. One option is to participate in cow-share programs and support campaigns like www.RealMilk.com, sponsored by the Weston A. Price Foundation, that are working for a solution to make raw milk and other raw foods available to people who want them. Ironically, the staunchly prohibitive U.S. stance against raw dairy products is a modern development--nearly every other country in the world has traditionally allowed those citizens interested in using raw milk a way to obtain it.

There’s no question about it, the body does better on whole, live, natural foods, from animal and vegetable sources, especially if they are organically grown. One study at Rutgers found that organic produce had an average of 83 percent more nutrients. Besides having higher nutrient density, being more sustainable and more harmonious to the earth and our bodies, this food tastes better--and helps us keep in balance more easily.

Live foods have also been used as a powerful healing treatment. Even as far back as 500 B.C., the wise teacher Pythagoras used raw foods to heal people with poor digestion. Throughout Europe and also here in the United States, completely live food and juice diets have been used to heal a variety of ailments, from arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes, ulcers, heart and circulatory diseases to cancer and other degenerative diseases.

Dr. Edward Szekely, for example, saw over 123,600 patients, 17 percent of who were diagnosed medical “incurables” over a 33-year period from 1937 to 1970 at his clinic at Rancho La Puerta, Mexico. Over 90 percent regained full health on a live-food diet.

This type of regimen is unquestionably effective as a cleansing, detoxification program for a short period of time, especially in the tropics or in warm weather. But it is impractical and unnatural--possibly even unwise--as a prolonged dietary program in the dead of winter in frigid northern climates. For most people it certainly is not warming or satisfying enough. Even raw food proponent Gabriel Cousens reported feeling chronically “cold” during the first several winters after he adopted a 100 percent raw food intake. It just doesn’t feel right.

If you think about it, your body just naturally leans toward more cooling, fresh, raw, live food like salads in the summer. Do you honestly feel like cranking up the heat to cook dinner when the temperature outside is a sweltering 90 degrees F? In the winter, however, when your body is trying to marshal its forces to stay warm and keep you alive, would a plate of fresh sprouts and lettuces satisfy you, or would you just naturally gravitate toward a nice, hot steaming bowl of soup or stew to warm you up after weathering a cold, snowy trip home?.

Of course, raw foods are not without their negatives. Raw foods have a higher percentage of bacteria and parasites. Canavanine, an amino acid in raw alfalfa sprouts not present in the mature plants, is an antinutrient factor that has been shown to inhibit the immune system and contribute to inflammatory arthritis and lupus, according to Sally Fallon in Nourishing Traditions, a reason why traditional cultures have avoided eating alfalfa in the sprout stage. Many vegetables, unless juiced, are harder to digest when raw. The phytates or anti-factors in grains also bind up minerals, making them unavailable to the human body, a probable reason why most grain has traditionally been fermented or sprouted rather than eaten raw or simply ground into flour. Many beans and legumes, especially raw soybeans, lentils, black-eyed peas, peanuts and mung beans, also contain trypsin inhibitors, which block key digestive enzymes. Therefore, even raw foodist Dr. Gabriel Cousens does not recommend more than occasional use of raw sprouted beans or peas.

Unfortunately, it’s not always just about the nutrition. All too often raw food converts (just as some advocates of other radical dietary protocols) possess a near frenzied religious fervor, attaching spiritual, puritanical, even moralistic significance to the virtues of their “superior” 100 percent raw, vegan or vegetable-food diet. Coined “Orthorexia Nervosa” in Health Food Junkies by Dr. Steven Bratman and David Knight, this phenomena has been personally observed within numerous healthy food communities. Unfortunately, it ends up being dysfunctional and unsustainable, reflecting obsessive need to control and to be right, with a bottom line that essentially makes the enjoyment of eating into a guilty vice. It’s highly counterproductive, dissociative and unhealthy (especially for the greater conscious community of people who are waking up about the truth in food and agriculture) for various food and dietary philosophies to be in a constant game of superiority and one-upmanship. Even worse is exclusionism--continuing to maintain a “WE HAVE THE ONLY WAY” type of attitude. This is just as bad as religious wars.

Those of us who are working toward healthier food and lifestyles need to recognize that no single diet is right for everyone all the time and start looking for areas of common agreement. Instead of competing within ourselves, we need to communicate and cooperate to create more unifying action, to put our energy and focus into asserting and proactively fighting for our rights for good, clean healthy food and environment.

The fact is: No ONE food plan is right for everyone all the time--except that it is becoming painfully obvious that contemporary “One-Size-Fits-All” Diets are out. They just do not work for everyone.

Each of us is unique. Each person has a distinct biochemical individuality, a unique metabolic type and profile that is ours alone. If we listen, our body and our self will communicate what we need to stay in balance.

Everything in nature strives toward balance. The body is constructed so that if it is given the right nutrients, its systems will put them where they are needed and the body will heal itself, affirms Dr. William B. Ferril, M.D. The body possesses an innate healing mechanism that is always trying to nudge us back to a state of equilibrium, a state of health. We are not machines that need repairmen. We can heal ourselves, if we pay attention and become aware; if we give ourselves the chance’ if we listen to our bodies and that deeper part of ourselves.

Hippocrates’ ‘HEAL THYSELF’ doesn’t apply just to physicians. Each of us has a healer within. Thy food shall be thy medicine and thy medicine shall be thy food.

Or a more contemporary version from Gabriel Cousens: “With the proper diet, no doctor is necessary. With the improper diet, no doctor can help.”

Well folks, it is time for a major update on my recommendations for eating raw eggs. First, before I review the update, I want to dispel the common myth that raw eggs are bad for you. Most people fear them because of the risk for salmonella contamination. I had stated that one should never consume raw egg white alone without the yolks, as a component in them called avidin binds to the B-vitamin biotin, potentially creating a deficiency in your body. However, my position shifted when one consumed whole raw eggs, both the yolk and the white together.

One of my raw food mentors convinced me that there was more than enough biotin in raw egg yolks to compensate for this problem, and I revised my previous recommendation to say that eating whole raw eggs would not pose a problem. This idea made sense to me as many wild animals consume raw eggs with no apparent problems.

However, recently a subscriber, Dr. Sharma, PhD, who is a biochemist with Bayer, contacted me about this issue. His investigation into the matter revealed that there is not enough biotin in an egg yolk to bind to all the avidin present in the raw whites. He found that 5.7 grams of biotin are required to neutralize all the avidin found in the raw whites of an average-sized egg. There are only about 25 micrograms -- or 25 millionths of a gram -- of biotin in an average egg yolk.

This is obviously not nearly enough to do the job. For this very reason, controlled diets of only raw egg whites lead to severe biotin deficiency.

So is this the 'end' for the healthy consumption of raw egg whites? If you naturally tend to be biotin deficient or are pregnant then the answer is yes. However, raw egg whites (the white 'Yin' to the yolk's 'Yang') are part of the important combined nutritional balance of the egg.

The nutritional breakdown of the egg white is rather impressive. With 9.8 grams of varied protein, high riboflavin, magnesium and potassium, plus a whopping 25 percent the daily value of selenium, there are options to have your white and eat it too! If you decide to eat whole raw eggs, here are my suggested options:

If you have been consuming whole raw eggs like I have, you may be concerned that you are now deficient in biotin. You need not worry too much as it takes months to years of severely deficient biotin intake to cause any noticeable symptoms, and these symptoms will clear up quickly if you stop eating raw egg whites and take a biotin supplement for a few weeks.

A definitive diagnosis of biotin deficiency can be made if the symptoms in question resolve by supplementing with biotin, or by measuring and detecting a reduction in urinary excretion of biotin.

One of the problems with being on the leading edge of natural medicine is that occasionally one will veer off course a bit, but with time the direction always swings back to the truth. Many readers have appreciated my openness to modifying my views based on new information. This is in direct contrast to the conventional medical model that can be quite dogmatic and rigid about considering new data to modify their current beliefs.

According to a recent study nearly two-thirds of chronically ill children use dietary supplements, and 30 percent are using non-prescribed supplements.

Though some supplements can be beneficial, their effects on children's growth and development are often unknown, and, since doctors are often unaware that their patients are taking supplements -- only 20 percent of parents whose children were taking unprescribed supplements had discussed them with the child's doctor -- drug-herb interactions are a concern.

In the study, a survey was given to parents of over 500 chronically ill children. In all, nearly 200 different dietary supplement products were being used, including:

Researchers said that parents should discuss their children's use of unprescribed dietary supplements with their doctors or registered dietitians. Though they may not always know of potential adverse reactions between supplements and medications or health conditions, they do have access to such information.

Americans are now spending more than $17 billion a year on supplements for health and wellness. Strangely enough, the rates of some forms of chronic disease have not changed, while the rates of others have actually increased. There are a number of reasons for these poor statistics and many things remain a mystery.

One thing seems fairly clear, however. Most supplements aren't helping very much.

I'm not saying there are no helpful supplements out there. There certainly are. What is becoming more apparent, however, is supplements will not help much if one does not first address the necessary basics of health and healing.

What is also clear is that not all supplements are created equal. I believe these areas must be addressed for true healing to occur in any chronic disease. In this article, I will discuss some things you should consider if you need to or want to take some supplements. Specifically, I will address the differences between whole foods versus synthetic or isolated nutritional supplements.

Most people are at least somewhat familiar with the idea that whole foods are better for you than refined foods. Although there are numerous viewpoints on what kind of foods we should or should not be eating, as well as the ideal ratio of these foods, everyone from all corners of the diet and nutrition world seems to agree on one thing: No matter which foods we choose and in what ratios we eat them, whole foods are better for you than refined foods.

This fact has never really been argued. Everyone agrees raw honey is better for you than white sugar or that brown rice is better for you than white rice. Why should it be any different for vitamins?

Often, I have been puzzled by the average naturopath or nutritionist who goes on and on about the value of whole foods and how refined foods -- having been robbed of all the extra nutrients they naturally come with -- are not healthy for you. Then, they go on to prescribe a shopping bag full of isolated, refined vitamins for you to take!

Just like refined foods, these refined vitamins have been robbed of all of the extra accessory nutrients that they naturally come with as well. In turn, like refined foods, they can create numerous problems and imbalances in your body if taken at high levels for long periods of time. They can also act more like drugs in your body, forcing themselves down one pathway or another. At the very least, they won't help you as much as high quality food and food-based supplements.

Whole food supplements are what their name suggests: Supplements made from concentrated whole foods. The vitamins found within these supplements are not isolated. They are highly complex structures that combine a variety of enzymes, coenzymes, antioxidants, trace elements, activators and many other unknown or undiscovered factors all working together synergistically, to enable this vitamin complex to do its job in your body.

Nutrients from within this complex cannot be taken apart or isolated from the whole, and then be expected to do the same job in the body as the whole complex is designed to do.

The perfect example of this difference can be seen in an automobile. An automobile is a wonderfully designed complex machine that needs all of its parts to be present and in place to function properly. Wheels are certainly an important part of the whole, but you could never isolate them from the rest of the car, call them a car or expect them to function like a car. They need the engine, body and everything else.

The same analogy applies to the vitamin C (ascorbic acid) or vitamin E (delta tocopherol) you can find on most health food store shelves. They are parts of an entire complex that serve a purpose when part of the whole. However, they cannot do the job of the entire complex by themselves.

With similar logic in place, one can analyze what a typical multivitamin truly is. The automobile equivalent of creating a multivitamin would be going to a junk yard, finding all of the separate parts you would need to make up an entire automobile, throwing them together in a heap (or capsule in terms of the multivitamin) and expecting that heap to drive like a car!

Obviously, there is a difference. Science cannot create life. Only life can create life.

Isolated nutrients or synthetic nutrients are not natural, in that they are never found by themselves in nature. Taking these isolated nutrients, especially at the ultra-high doses found in formulas today, is more like taking a drug. Studies show the body treats these isolated and synthetic nutrients like xenobiotics (foreign substances).

By the same token, food-based supplements are never treated like this by your body. For example, your urine will never turn florescent yellow, no matter how much meat (a good source of B vitamins) you eat. This sort of rapid excretion happens only with foreign substances in your body.

Not only are isolated nutrients treated like drugs or other chemicals by your body. Like drugs, they can create problems for you too. Nature does not produce any nutrient in an isolated form. The nutrients in foods are blended together in a specific way and work best in that format. For an isolated nutrient to work properly in the body, it needs all the other parts that are naturally present in the food too.

If the parts are not all there from the start, they are taken from the body's stored supply. This is why isolated nutrients often work for a little while, then seem to stop working. Once your body's store of the extra nutrients is used up, the isolated nutrient you're taking doesn't work as well anymore. Worse yet, a deficiency in these extra nutrients can be created in your body.

And, because most nutrients are isolated from the foods they come in -- using a wide array of potentially nasty solvents and other chemicals -- taking high amounts of these products can also expose you to these potentially toxic chemicals, if care is not taken to remove them. With the burden we are already facing from the high number of chemicals in our environment, why would anyone want to add more?

The various parts of a natural vitamin complex work together in a synergistic manner. Synergy means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Nutritionist Judith DeCava puts it best: "Separating the group of compounds (in a vitamin complex) converts it from a physiological, biochemical, active micronutrient into a disabled, debilitated chemical of little or no value to living cells. The synergy is gone."

In other words, the automobile, in its original form, will drive better than a pile of its individual parts. Most people don't follow this logic when examining a nutritional supplement.

Supplement makers typically try to stuff as much as possible in a capsule, telling us that the more we take, the better it is for us. This is simply not the case. As you now know, it is not necessarily the amount of a nutrient you ingest that is important, but its form and how much is bioavailable that counts the most. In fact, remembering that ingesting single nutrients can actually create imbalances in the body, logic would dictate the higher the level of a single nutrient that you take in, the quicker this imbalance will occur.

What all of this means: The potency of a supplement has much more to do with synergy than with actual nutrient levels. It is a combined effect of all the parts of the food, rather than the chemical effect of a single part, that is most important.

I fear all of this talk of supplements -- food-based, isolated or synthetic -- has detracted from the most important part of health and healing. The basics of proper diet, exercise, detoxification, structure, mental/emotional and spiritual health must all be in order for true healing to occur. No supplement will work on its own if these foundations are not in place.

However, even when these foundations are in place, or if the situation is acute enough to necessitate a more immediate treatment response, supplement support may still be needed for a while. You may also want to take one or more food-based supplements to ensure you are getting an adequate array of nutrients in your diet. When these situations arise, I strongly recommend food-based supplements be your first choice.

How do you tell whether or not a supplement you're looking at is a good choice? For starters, make sure it has the following characteristics:

It's no secret that Americans suffer from a hearty array of aches, pains and other maladies. In fact, I challenge you to think of someone in your life, particularly someone over the age of 30 or 40, who does NOT suffer from one of the "common" diseases you'll see mentioned below. It is alarming that a person free from disease and health problems is becoming the rare exception rather than the norm.

The sad fact is, these "common" diseases have become so much a part of the way we live that they're just as much a part of the American Dream as a house with a white picket fence. Along with that two-car garage and 2.5 kids, we have high cholesterol and hypertension, anxiety and depression, chronic pain and insomnia. It's sown right into the seeds that plant our freshly mown lawns.

But what if I told you that for each of these common diseases, there is a very real, very attainable alternative that can help? You don't have to accept these conditions as a way of life or resign yourself to a lifetime of medications and other elixirs. The following natural options will set you free from these common conditions and soon the healthy life you've really been dreaming of will become a reality.

Cholesterol is an extremely important nutrient that your body needs to survive -- in fact, it is a structural precursor of the membrane around each of your 10 trillion cells. It is also the major precursor molecule for every major steroid hormone. Your body converts cholesterol into pregnenolone, and from there into important hormones like estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, testosterone and DHEA.

There are two types of cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), which is known as "good" cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad" cholesterol. HDL is so important to your body that it actually protects against atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). This is why total cholesterol levels are not typically very helpful in predicting heart disease. Instead, it is the proportion of HDL to total cholesterol ratio that is so important.

Many people are unaware that insulin, the hormone secreted by your pancreas to normalize your blood sugar levels after you eat a sugary snack, plays a large role in high blood pressure. Raised insulin levels cause blood pressure to rise, so if you eat sugars and grains that break down into sugar, such as bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, beans, cookies, cakes, cereals, oatmeal, toast and rice, your body will be releasing insulin to balance out your blood sugar and blood pressure will therefore increase.

Insulin is not the only factor, however. Emotional stress is also plays a major role. High blood pressure is a serious issue that can kill or permanently impair you, and it should not be ignored, but it is important to remember that high blood pressure normally kills you slowly over time (giving you time to address the problem without taking high-priced drugs).

Please note that if your systolic blood pressure is over 160-180 there is a danger that you could have a stroke, so you need to be careful about stopping your blood pressure medications without monitoring your blood pressure carefully.

Number of Americans with Anxiety: 30 million
Number of Americans with Depression: 18 million

Depression and anxiety are absolutely devastating conditions that can figuratively paralyze a person from living their life. If left unaddressed, these mental challenges can cause physical symptoms and leave a person unable to deal with relationships, work and even day-to-day activities.

What causes depression or anxiety? There are many theories out there, which include:

During the deepest phases of sleep growth hormone is released, energy is restored and the immune system is strengthened, and during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep we have vivid dreams and our brains may be working on consolidating memories.

It's no wonder, then, that insomnia, or routinely having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, causes numerous health problems in those who are afflicted, as well as secondary effects like lost productivity and the ability to enjoy precious daytime hours. Insomnia has named as a contributing to factor to many diseases, including diabetes, depression, obesity and cancer.

Chronic back pain affects some 80 percent of Americans at some point during their lives. Causes of the pain are varied and include physical impairments or injuries, psychological factors and an inability to recover (due to other illness, lifestyle or emotional factors).

Because we depend on our muscles, especially those in our backs, for our very survival, chronic pain that results in an inability to move freely is debilitating, causing emotional, financial and psychological strain on those afflicted. Chronic pain symptoms vary almost as much as the causes, and can be dull, aching, burning or sharp, broad or centered in one place. It can come on gradually or appear suddenly with little warning and accompanied by muscle spasms and stiffness.

Wednesday, June 23, 2004 Posted: 10:12 AM EDT (1412 GMT)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Popular low-carbohydrate diets are leading Americans to poor health and spawning a rip-off industry of "carb-friendly" products, health experts and consumer advocates have said. They announced a new group, called the Partnership for Essential Nutrition, to help educate Americans about the need for healthy carbohydrates such as vegetables, fruits, beans and whole grains. "When unproven science becomes a sales pitch, some people get rich and the rest of us get ripped off," Jeffrey Prince of the American Institute for Cancer Research told a news conference. "Eating vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans, which are all predominantly carbohydrate, is linked to a reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and a range of other chronic diseases." Prince said low-carb diets that advocate piling on the animal protein and fat are "increasing the risk of developing cancer, heart disease, stroke, type-2 diabetes and other chronic diseases". The new group includes such organizations as the Alliance for Aging Research, the American Association of Diabetes Educators, the AICR and the American Obesity Association. Its Web site at http://www.essentialnutrition.org/ is especially critical of programs, such as the Atkins diet, that advocate throwing the body into a condition called ketosis. During this phase the body sheds water as it tries to get rid of excess protein and fat-breakdown products. "Losing weight on these extreme low-carb diets can lead to such serious health problems as kidney stress, liver disorders and gout," the group advises.
Atkins rebuttal
Dr. Stuart Trager, Medical Director for Atkins Nutritionals, Inc., said the Atkins diet is healthy. "In fact, the Atkins Nutritional Approach includes spinach, eggplant, broccoli, asparagus and leafy greens, in addition to other high-fiber vegetables and fruits," Trager said in a statement. "Even during induction, Atkins requires five servings of vegetables and/or fruits a day."
The new group published a survey of 1,017 adults, done by Opinion Research Corporation, that showed 19 percent of dieters are trying to cut carbs.
The survey found that 47 percent them believed that low-carb diets can help them lose weight without cutting calories. "They are confused. They lack an understanding of the basic science," Barbara Moore, president of Shape Up America, told the news conference. She said a "trickle-down effect" meant other Americans were now eating fewer fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy products.start quote When unproven science becomes a sales pitch, some people get rich and the rest of us get ripped off. end quote -- Jeffrey Prince, American Institute for Cancer Research
The U.S. government, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, National Cancer Institute and American Diabetes Association all recommend getting at least five servings a day of fruits and vegetables. They also recommend eating plenty of whole grains.
The National Consumers League said it found dieters were spending an average of $85 a month on so-called low-carbohydrate products, although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not evaluate or regulate low-carb claims.
"Consumers are paying a premium price for a carb-friendly lifestyle," said Alison Rein of the National Consumers League. She called for the FDA, U.S, Department of Agriculture and other agencies to issue immediate guidelines on such claims.
Studies show that a low-carbohydrate approach can cause people to lose weight more quickly than a low-fat diet for the first six months, but the low-fat approach catches up after a year.

Especially breast cancer. Don't freeze plastic water bottles with water in them as this also releases dioxin from the plastic. Dr. Edward Fujimoto from Castle hospital was on a TV program explaining this health hazard. (He is the manager of the Wellness Program at the hospital.) He was talking about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said we should not heat our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This applies particularly to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body Dioxin are carcinogens and highly toxic to the cells of our bodies. Instead, he recommends using glass, Corning Ware, or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results ...without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else. Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. Just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. Remember when some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper? The dioxin problem is one of the reasons. To add to this: Saran wrap placed over foods as they are nuked, with the high heat, actually drips poisonous toxins into the food, use paper towels instead. Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in their newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Please pass this on to your family & friends, & those who are important in your life. Here's to your health!

A growing number of people have been making an effort to include more fruits and vegetables into their diets, as such foods are known for having high antioxidant qualities. However, it seems fruits and vegetables may have found a new rival: Peanuts. According to studies, peanuts not only contain the so-called "good" fat (monounsaturated fat), but they are also high in a variety of helpful antioxidants, or chemicals that shield the damaging effects of free radicals. Free radicals can be described as unstable molecules that occur naturally in the human body, damaging living cells. Such damage has been related to:

By integrating peanuts and peanut butter into a healthful diet, it is possible to lower cholesterol, lose weight and prevent type 2 diabetes.

Vitamins A, C and E are recognized as antioxidants and peanuts are an optimal source of vitamin E. In addition, peanuts contain high concentrations of polyphenols (a compound called p-coumaric acid), which also have strong antioxidant properties. Research has indicated that roasting peanuts can boost the level of p-coumaric acid, increasing the total antioxidant content by as much as 22 percent.

Many people dream of having access to a fountain of youth, a chance to defy the seemingly unstoppable deterioration of old age; however, such a reality may not be far off.

According to researchers, boosting your body's levels of natural antioxidants could be the key to a long life. How? Chemicals known as free radicals, which have been linked with heart disease, cancer and other age-related diseases, damage cells by generating a reaction called oxidation; antioxidants interfere with this chemical reaction.

Studies determined that mice genetically engineered to produce an abundance of catalase -- a human antioxidant enzyme that helps break down hydrogen peroxide in water and oxygen -- lived longer than normal mice. (Hydrogen peroxide is created during metabolism, and it can be an originator of damaging free radicals.)

Moreover, the mice were designed to produce extra catalase in certain areas of their bodies: Their cytoplasm, nucleus and mitochondria.

These findings highlight the importance of free radicals in the aging process and support the idea that the mitochondria produce harmful free radicals as part of everyday metabolism.

Dec. 15, 2004 -- Eating two spoonfuls of peanut butter straight from the jar may seem like a guilty pleasure, but new research shows it could be a healthy habit.

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University found that men, women, and children who ate a daily dose of peanuts or peanut butter were better able to meet the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for vitamins and nutrients than those who steered clear.

A single serving of peanut butter is equal to two tablespoons. One ounce of nuts equals one serving.

Including peanuts and peanut butter daily in a calorie-balanced diet can help meet nutrient goals set by the U.S. government, nutritionist and study researcher Penny Kris-Etherton, PhD, RD, says in a news release. The study was funded in part by The Peanut Institute.

The findings are published in the December issue of the Journal of American College of Nutrition.

Specifically, the diets of peanut and peanut butter eaters were higher in vitamins A and E, folic acid, calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron, and fiber. Nuts are also loaded with monounsaturated fats, which have been linked to lower cholesterol.

In recent years peanut butter and nuts have been shown to be part of a healthy diet. A Harvard study in 2002 showed that women who regularly ate peanut butter and nuts had a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. And the more they ate, the lower their risk was. And in July 2003 the FDA approved a qualified health claim for almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, pistachios, walnuts, and peanuts for use in advertising and package labels.

Packages of nut products that meet the FDA's requirement can now carry the following claim:

"Scientific evidence suggests but does not prove that eating 1.5 ounces per day of most nuts, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease." An ounce and a half serving of nuts is about a third of a cup or a small handful.

In this new study, the researchers found that men and children who regularly ate nuts had lower cholesterol. There was no significant effect in women.

But peanuts and peanut butter are high in fat, so there's a concern that eating too much could make a person gain weight.

The researchers found that calorie intake was indeed higher in people who regularly ate nuts. However, BMI -- an indicator of body fat -- was actually lower in nut eaters.

Want to learn more about the healthy effects of nuts and peanut butter? Check out what Kathleen Zelman, MPH, RD, director of nutrition for the WebMD Weight Loss Clinic has to say.

The Medical Tribune November 17, 1999

It isn't just an apple a day that keeps the doctor away. Many fruits and vegetables contain combinations of three antioxidant pigments - lycopene, lutein and zeaxanthin - that have been linked to reduced rates of prostate cancer and age-related vision loss, according to new scientific evidence.

Researchers, led by Dr. Omer Kucuk, professor of medicine and oncology at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute at Wayne State University in Detroit, randomly assigned 26 men with localized prostate cancer to either remain on their normal diets or also receive 25 milligrams of supplements of lycopene - the red pigment found in tomatoes - twice daily for three weeks prior to radical prostate surgery. Results were presented Tuesday at a press conference held at Rockefeller Plaza in New York. The study showed that there is an inverse relationship between lycopene levels and prostate cancer growth - as lycopene levels increased, cancer growth decreased.

As expected, the prostate glands of the intervention subjects showed higher levels of lycopene than those of the control subjects. However, the patients treated with lycopene supplements also had malignant prostatic tissue with higher levels of connexin 43 - a protein that inhibits growth of malignant cells and promotes cancer cells to differentiate and die. Additionally, within the lycopene group, 11 of 15 (73 percent) participants were found with cancer confined to the prostate, compared to only two of 11 (18 percent) in the control group. Kucuk said this was especially important, because if the tumor spreads beyond the prostate, the majority of patients will suffer a cancer relapse, even if the original surgery is successful.

Also significant, Kucuk said, is that 12 of the 15 (84 percent) patients treated with lycopene had smaller tumors than those in the control group. "This is the first study to show that a lycopene supplement can protect against the occurrence or spread of prostate cancer," Kucuk said. "However, because the study was small, we cannot come to any definite conclusions," he added, suggesting that larger, long-term studies need to be conducted in order to prove that lycopene reduces the risk of prostate cancer.

While there are no official guidelines, experts recommend that people consume approximately seven tomato-rich meals per week or a 1/4 cup of tomato sauce a day to meet the goal of five to 10 milligrams per day.

Further research conducted by John T. Landrum, a professor in the department of chemistry at Florida International University in Miami, showed that consumption of fruits and vegetables containing lutein and zeaxanthin - commonly found in broccoli, corn, squash and dark green leafy vegetables such as spinach and kale - may reduce the risk for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of vision loss in people over the age of 50.

Lutein and zeaxanthin are concentrated in the fovea, the central region of the retina, which is the light-sensitive area of the eye. The macula rests at the back of the eye and is necessary for fine vision. Participants who were given large doses (approximately 30 milligram per day) of supplemental lutein and zeaxanthin were found to develop significant increases in macular pigment. In a small-scale study, subjects were given 2.4 milligrams of lutein daily for six months. Even with the low levels of lutein, macular pigment levels increased between 20 and 300 percent in most participants, 50 percent of whom showed significant increases. The highest levels of lutein and zeaxanthin were associated with a 75 percent reduction in the risk of AMD.

"Because lutein and zeaxanthin concentrations in the eye and at the point of greatest visual acuity are extremely high, we believe they play an important role in the health of the macula," Landrum said. "As the macula has the highest level of lutein in the body, it makes sense that additional levels would increase macular pigmentation and reduce the risk for AMD," said Ross Pelton, a pharmacist and clinical nutritionist in San Diego. Pelton recommended that the elderly, baby boomers and diabetics - who often suffer from diabetic retinopathy - consume higher doses of lutein.

Approximately 1.7 million Americans over age 65 have AMD; there is no known cure. Symptoms include blurred vision, the illusion that straight lines are wavy and the appearance of a dark or empty area in the center of vision.

Copyright 1999
The Medical Tribune News Service.
All rights reserved.

Incorporate Antioxidants Into Your Diet Since there are many antioxidant-rich foods to choose from, it's easy to find the ones you enjoy and make them a regular part of your meals. Though, no matter what source you choose, be sure to include antioxidant-rich foods in your diet every day. Doing so will help protect your body from the long-term and cumulative effects of free radical damage.

Polyphenols: food sources and bioavailability

From the Unité des Maladies Métaboliques et Micronutriments, INRA, Saint-Genès Champanelle, France , Claudine Manach, Augustin Scalbert, Christine Morand, Christian Rémésy and Liliana Jiménez and Danone Vitapole Research, Palaiseau cedex, France (LJ).

Polyphenols are abundant micronutrients in our diet, and evidencefor their role in the prevention of degenerative diseases suchas cancer and cardiovascular diseases is emerging. The healtheffects of polyphenols depend on the amount consumed and ontheir bioavailability. In this article, the nature and contentsof the various polyphenols present in food sources and the influenceof agricultural practices and industrial processes are reviewed.Estimates of dietary intakes are given for each class of polyphenols.The bioavailability of polyphenols is also reviewed, with particularfocus on intestinal absorption and the influence of chemicalstructure (eg, glycosylation, esterification, and polymerization),food matrix, and excretion back into the intestinal lumen. Informationon the role of microflora in the catabolism of polyphenols andthe production of some active metabolites is presented. Mechanismsof intestinal and hepatic conjugation (methylation, glucuronidation,sulfation), plasma transport, and elimination in bile and urineare also described. Pharmacokinetic data for the various polyphenolsare compared. Studies on the identification of circulating metabolites,cellular uptake, intracellular metabolism with possible deconjugation,biological properties of the conjugated metabolites, and specificaccumulation in some target tissues are discussed. Finally,bioavailability appears to differ greatly between the variouspolyphenols, and the most abundant polyphenols in our diet arenot necessarily those that have the best bioavailability profile.A thorough knowledge of the bioavailability of the hundredsof dietary polyphenols will help us to identify those that aremost likely to exert protective health effects.

Key Words: Polyphenols • flavonoids • phenolic acids • food sources • dietary intake • intestinal absorption • metabolism • bioavailability

Over the past 10 y, researchers and food manufacturers havebecome increasingly interested in polyphenols. The chief reasonfor this interest is the recognition of the antioxidant propertiesof polyphenols, their great abundance in our diet, and theirprobable role in the prevention of various diseases associatedwith oxidative stress, such as cancer and cardiovascular andneurodegenerative diseases (Scalbert A, Manach C, Morand C,Rémésy C, Jiménez L. Crit Rev Food SciNutr, in press). Furthermore, polyphenols, which constitutethe active substances found in many medicinal plants, modulatethe activity of a wide range of enzymes and cell receptors (1).In this way, in addition to having antioxidant properties, polyphenolshave several other specific biological actions that are as yetpoorly understood. Two aims of research are to establish evidencefor the effects of polyphenol consumption on health and to identifywhich of the hundreds of existing polyphenols are likely toprovide the greatest protection in the context of preventivenutrition. If these objectives are to be attained, it is firstessential to determine the nature and distribution of thesecompounds in our diet. Such knowledge will allow evaluationof polyphenol intake and enable epidemiologic analysis thatwill in turn provide an understanding of the relation betweenthe intake of these substances and the risk of development ofseveral diseases. Furthermore, not all polyphenols are absorbedwith equal efficacy. They are extensively metabolized by intestinaland hepatic enzymes and by the intestinal microflora. Knowledgeof the bioavailability and metabolism of the various polyphenolsis necessary to evaluate their biological activity within targettissues. The types and distribution of polyphenols in foodsand the bioavailability of polyphenols are the topics of thepresent review.

Several thousand molecules having a polyphenol structure (ie,several hydroxyl groups on aromatic rings) have been identifiedin higher plants, and several hundred are found in edible plants.These molecules are secondary metabolites of plants and aregenerally involved in defense against ultraviolet radiationor aggression by pathogens. These compounds may be classifiedinto different groups as a function of the number of phenolrings that they contain and of the structural elements thatbind these rings to one another. Distinctions are thus madebetween the phenolic acids, flavonoids, stilbenes, and lignans. The flavonoids, which share a common structure consistingof 2 aromatic rings (A and B) that are bound together by 3 carbonatoms that form an oxygenated heterocycle (ring C), may themselvesbe divided into 6 subclasses as a function of the type of heterocycleinvolved: flavonols, flavones, isoflavones, flavanones, anthocyanidins,and flavanols (catechins and proanthocyanidins) .In addition to this diversity, polyphenols may be associatedwith various carbohydrates and organic acids and with one another.

Phenolic acids
Two classes of phenolic acids can be distinguished: derivativesof benzoic acid and derivatives of cinnamic acid .The hydroxybenzoic acid content of edible plants is generallyvery low, with the exception of certain red fruits, black radish,and onions, which can have concentrations of several tens ofmilligrams per kilogram fresh weight (2). Tea is an importantsource of gallic acid: tea leaves may contain up to 4.5 g/kgfresh wt (3). Furthermore, hydroxybenzoic acids are componentsof complex structures such as hydrolyzable tannins (gallotanninsin mangoes and ellagitannins in red fruit such as strawberries,raspberries, and blackberries) (4). Because these hydroxybenzoicacids, both free and esterified, are found in only a few plantseaten by humans, they have not been extensively studied andare not currently considered to be of great nutritional interest.

The hydroxycinnamic acids are more common than are the hydroxybenzoicacids and consist chiefly of p-coumaric, caffeic, ferulic, andsinapic acids. These acids are rarely found in the free form,except in processed food that has undergone freezing, sterilization,or fermentation. The bound forms are glycosylated derivativesor esters of quinic acid, shikimic acid, and tartaric acid.Caffeic and quinic acid combine to form chlorogenic acid, whichis found in many types of fruit and in high concentrations incoffee: a single cup may contain 70–350 mg chlorogenicacid (5). The types of fruit having the highest content (blueberries,kiwis, plums, cherries, apples) contain 0.5–2 g hydroxycinnamicacids/kg fresh wt .

Caffeic acid, both free and esterified, is generally the mostabundant phenolic acid and represents between 75% and 100% ofthe total hydroxycinnamic acid content of most fruit. Hydroxycinnamicacids are found in all parts of fruit, although the highestconcentrations are seen in the outer parts of ripe fruit. Concentrationsgenerally decrease during the course of ripening, but totalquantities increase as the fruit increases in size.

Ferulic acid is the most abundant phenolic acid found in cerealgrains, which constitute its main dietary source. The ferulicacid content of wheat grain is ${approx}$ 0.8–2 g/kg dry wt, whichmay represent up to 90% of total polyphenols (28, 29). Ferulicacid is found chiefly in the outer parts of the grain. The aleuronelayer and the pericarp of wheat grain contain 98% of the totalferulic acid. The ferulic acid content of different wheat floursis thus directly related to levels of sieving, and bran is themain source of polyphenols (30). Rice and oat flours containapproximately the same quantity of phenolic acids as wheat flour(63 mg/kg), although the content in maize flour is about 3 timesas high (2). Ferulic acid is found chiefly in the trans form,which is esterified to arabinoxylans and hemicelluloses in thealeurone and pericarp. Only 10% of ferulic acid is found insoluble free form in wheat bran (29). Several dimers of ferulicacid are also found in cereals and form bridge structures betweenchains of hemicellulose.

Flavonoids
Flavonols are the most ubiquitous flavonoids in foods, and themain representatives are quercetin and kaempferol. They aregenerally present at relatively low concentrations of ${approx}$ 15–30mg/kg fresh wt. The richest sources are onions (up to 1.2 g/kgfresh wt), curly kale, leeks, broccoli, and blueberries (Table1

). Red wine and tea also contain up to 45 mg flavonols/L. Thesecompounds are present in glycosylated forms. The associatedsugar moiety is very often glucose or rhamnose, but other sugarsmay also be involved (eg, galactose, arabinose, xylose, glucuronicacid). Fruit often contains between 5 and 10 different flavonolglycosides (6). These flavonols accumulate in the outer andaerial tissues (skin and leaves) because their biosynthesisis stimulated by light. Marked differences in concentrationexist between pieces of fruit on the same tree and even betweendifferent sides of a single piece of fruit, depending on exposureto sunlight (31). Similarly, in leafy vegetables such as lettuceand cabbage, the glycoside concentration is $>=$ 10times as high in the green outer leaves as in the inner light-coloredleaves (14). This phenomenon also accounts for the higher flavonolcontent of cherry tomatoes than of standard tomatoes, becausethey have different proportions of skin to whole fruit.

Flavones are much less common than flavonols in fruit and vegetables.Flavones consist chiefly of glycosides of luteolin and apigenin.The only important edible sources of flavones identified todate are parsley and celery (Table 1

). Cereals such as milletand wheat contain C-glycosides of flavones (32-34). The skinof citrus fruit contains large quantities of polymethoxylatedflavones: tangeretin, nobiletin, and sinensetin (up to 6.5 g/Lof essential oil of mandarin) (2). These polymethoxylated flavonesare the most hydrophobic flavonoids.

In human foods, flavanones are found in tomatoes and certainaromatic plants such as mint, but they are present in high concentrationsonly in citrus fruit. The main aglycones are naringenin in grapefruit,hesperetin in oranges, and eriodictyol in lemons. Flavanonesare generally glycosylated by a disaccharide at position 7:either a neohesperidose, which imparts a bitter taste (suchas to naringin in grapefruit), or a rutinose, which is flavorless.Orange juice contains between 200 and 600 mg hesperidin/L and15–85 mg narirutin/L, and a single glass of orange juicemay contain between 40 and 140 mg flavanone glycosides (20).Because the solid parts of citrus fruit, particularly the albedo(the white spongy portion) and the membranes separating thesegments, have a very high flavanone content, the whole fruitmay contain up to 5 times as much as a glass of orange juice.

Isoflavones are flavonoids with structural similarities to estrogens.Although they are not steroids, they have hydroxyl groups inpositions 7 and 4 in a configuration analogous to that of thehydroxyls in the estradiol molecule. This confers pseudohormonalproperties on them, including the ability to bind to estrogenreceptors, and they are consequently classified as phytoestrogens.Isoflavones are found almost exclusively in leguminous plants.Soya and its processed products are the main source of isoflavonesin the human diet. They contain 3 main molecules: genistein,daidzein, and glycitein, generally in a concentration ratioof 1:1:0.2. These isoflavones are found in 4 forms: aglycone,7-O-glucoside, 6"-O-acetyl-7-O-glucoside, and 6"-O-malonyl-7-O-glucoside(35). The 6"-O-malonylglucoside derivatives have an unpleasant,bitter, and astringent taste. They are sensitive to heat andare often hydrolyzed to glycosides during the course of industrialprocessing, as in the production of soya milk (36). The fermentationcarried out during the manufacturing of certain foods, suchas miso and tempeh, results in the hydrolysis of glycosidesto aglycones. The aglycones are highly resistant to heat. Theisoflavone content of soya and its manufactured products variesgreatly as a function of geographic zone, growing conditions,and processing. Soybeans contain between 580 and 3800 mg isoflavones/kgfresh wt, and soymilk contains between 30 and 175 mg/L (25,37).

Flavanols exist in both the monomer form (catechins) and thepolymer form (proanthocyanidins). Catechins are found in manytypes of fruit (apricots, which contain 250 mg/kg fresh wt,are the richest source; Table 1

). They are also present in redwine (up to 300 mg/L), but green tea and chocolate are by farthe richest sources. An infusion of green tea contains up to200 mg catechins (38). Black tea contains fewer monomer flavanols,which are oxidized during "fermentation" (heating) of tea leavesto more complex condensed polyphenols known as theaflavins (dimers)and thearubigins (polymers). Catechin and epicatechin are themain flavanols in fruit, whereas gallocatechin, epigallocatechin,and epigallocatechin gallate are found in certain seeds of leguminousplants, in grapes, and more importantly in tea (27, 39). Incontrast to other classes of flavonoids, flavanols are not glycosylatedin foods. The tea epicatechins are remarkably stable when exposedto heat as long as the pH is acidic: only ${approx}$ 15% of these substancesare degraded after 7 h in boiling water at pH 5 (40).

Proanthocyanidins, which are also known as condensed tannins,are dimers, oligomers, and polymers of catechins that are boundtogether by links between C4 and C8 (or C6). Their mean degreeof polymerization in foods has rarely been determined. In ciderapples, the mean degree of polymerization ranges from 4 to 11(41). Through the formation of complexes with salivary proteins,condensed tannins are responsible for the astringent characterof fruit (grapes, peaches, kakis, apples, pears, berries, etc)and beverages (wine, cider, tea, beer, etc) and for the bitternessof chocolate (42). This astringency changes over the courseof maturation and often disappears when the fruit reaches ripeness;this change has been well explained in the kaki fruit by polymerizationreactions with acetaldehyde (43). Such polymerization of tanninsprobably accounts for the apparent reduction in tannin contentthat is commonly seen during the ripening of many types of fruit.It is difficult to estimate the proanthocyanidin content offoods because proanthocyanidins have a wide range of structuresand molecular weights. The only available data concern dimersand trimers, which are as abundant as the catechins themselves(26).

Anthocyanins are pigments dissolved in the vacuolar sap of theepidermal tissues of flowers and fruit, to which they imparta pink, red, blue, or purple color (9). They exist in differentchemical forms, both colored and uncolored, according to pH.Although they are highly unstable in the aglycone form (anthocyanidins),while they are in plants, they are resistant to light, pH, andoxidation conditions that are likely to degrade them. Degradationis prevented by glycosylation, generally with a glucose at position3, and esterification with various organic acids (citric andmalic acids) and phenolic acids. In addition, anthocyanins arestabilized by the formation of complexes with other flavonoids(copigmentation). In the human diet, anthocyanins are foundin red wine, certain varieties of cereals, and certain leafyand root vegetables (aubergines, cabbage, beans, onions, radishes),but they are most abundant in fruit. Cyanidin is the most commonanthocyanidin in foods. Food contents are generally proportionalto color intensity and reach values up to 2–4 g/kg freshwt in blackcurrants or blackberries (Table 1

). These valuesincrease as the fruit ripens. Anthocyanins are found mainlyin the skin, except for certain types of red fruit, in whichthey also occur in the flesh (cherries and strawberries). Winecontains ${approx}$ 200–350 mg anthocyanins/L, and these anthocyaninsare transformed into various complex structures as the wineages (10, 44).

Lignans
Lignans are formed of 2 phenylpropane units (Figure 1

). Therichest dietary source is linseed, which contains secoisolariciresinol(up to 3.7 g/kg dry wt) and low quantities of matairesinol.Other cereals, grains, fruit, and certain vegetables also containtraces of these same lignans, but concentrations in linseedare ${approx}$ 1000 times as high as concentrations in these other foodsources (45). Lignans are metabolized to enterodiol and enterolactoneby the intestinal microflora. The low quantities of secoisolariciresinoland matairesinol that are ingested as part of our normal dietdo not account for the concentrations of the metabolites enterodioland enterolactone that are classically measured in plasma andurine. Thus, there are undoubtedly other lignans of plant originthat are precursors of enterodiol and enterolactone and thathave not yet been identified (46). Thompson et al (47) usedan in vitro technique involving the fermentation of foods byhuman colonic microflora to quantitatively evaluate precursorsof enterodiol and enterolactone. They confirmed that oleaginousseeds (linseed) are the richest source and identified algae,leguminous plants (lentils), cereals (triticale and wheat),vegetables (garlic, asparagus, carrots), and fruit (pears, prunes)as minor sources.

Stilbenes
Stilbenes are found in only low quantities in the human diet.One of these, resveratrol, for which anticarcinogenic effectshave been shown during screening of medicinal plants and whichhas been extensively studied, is found in low quantities inwine (0.3–7 mg aglycones/L and 15 mg glycosides/L in redwine) (48-50). However, because resveratrol is found in suchsmall quantities in the diet, any protective effect of thismolecule is unlikely at normal nutritional intakes.

Fruit and beverages such as tea and red wine constitute themain sources of polyphenols. Certain polyphenols such as quercetinare found in all plant products (fruit, vegetables, cereals,leguminous plants, fruit juices, tea, wine, infusions, etc),whereas others are specific to particular foods (flavanonesin citrus fruit, isoflavones in soya, phloridzin in apples).In most cases, foods contain complex mixtures of polyphenols,which are often poorly characterized. Apples, for example, containflavanol monomers (epicatechin mainly) or oligomers (procyanidinB2 mainly), chlorogenic acid and small quantities of other hydroxycinnamicacids, 2 glycosides of phloretin, several quercetin glycosides,and anthocyanins such as cyanidin 3-galactoside in the skinof certain red varieties. Apples are one of the rare types offood for which fairly precise data on polyphenol compositionare available. Differences in polyphenol composition betweenvarieties of apples have notably been studied. The polyphenolprofiles of all varieties of apples are practically identical,but concentrations may range from 0.1 to 5 g total polyphenols/kgfresh wt and may be as high as 10 g/kg in certain varietiesof cider apples (41, 51).

For many plant products, the polyphenol composition is muchless known, knowledge is often limited to one or a few varieties,and data sometimes do not concern the edible parts. Some foods,particularly some exotic types of fruit and some cereals, havenot been analyzed yet. Furthermore, numerous factors other thanvariety may affect the polyphenol content of plants; these factorsinclude ripeness at the time of harvest, environmental factors,processing, and storage.

Environmental factors have a major effect on polyphenol content.These factors may be pedoclimatic (soil type, sun exposure,rainfall) or agronomic (culture in greenhouses or fields, biologicalculture, hydroponic culture, fruit yield per tree, etc). Exposureto light has a considerable effect on most flavonoids. The degreeof ripeness considerably affects the concentrations and proportionsof the various polyphenols (6). In general, phenolic acid concentrationsdecrease during ripening, whereas anthocyanin concentrationsincrease. Many polyphenols, especially phenolic acids, are directlyinvolved in the response of plants to different types of stress:they contribute to healing by lignification of damaged areas,they possess antimicrobial properties, and their concentrationsmay increase after infection (2, 6, 52). Although very few studiesdirectly addressed this issue, the polyphenol content of vegetablesproduced by organic or sustainable agriculture is certainlyhigher than that of vegetables grown without stress, such asthose grown in conventional or hydroponic conditions. This wasshown recently in strawberries, blackberries, and corn (53).With the current state of knowledge, it is extremely difficultto determine for each family of plant products the key variablesthat are responsible for the variability in the content of eachpolyphenol and the relative weight of those variables. A hugeamount of analysis would be required to obtain this information.For example, determination of the p-coumaric acid content of>500 red wines showed that genetic factors were more importantthan was exposure to light or climate (54).

Storage may also affect the content of polyphenols that areeasily oxidized. Oxidation reactions result in the formationof more or less polymerized substances, which lead to changesin the quality of foods, particularly in color and organolepticcharacteristics. Such changes may be beneficial (as is the casewith black tea) or harmful (browning of fruit) to consumer acceptability.Storage of wheat flour results in marked loss of phenolic acids(28). After 6 mo of storage, flours contained the same phenolicacids in qualitative terms, but their concentrations were 70%lower. Cold storage, in contrast, did not affect the contentof polyphenols in apples (55, 56), pears (57), or onions (58).At 25 °C, storage of apple juice for 9 mo results in a 60%loss of quercetin and a total loss of procyanidins, despitethe fact that polyphenols are more stable in fruit juices thanis vitamin C (59, 60).

Methods of culinary preparation also have a marked effect onthe polyphenol content of foods. For example, simple peelingof fruit and vegetables can eliminate a significant portionof polyphenols because these substances are often present inhigher concentrations in the outer parts than in the inner parts.Cooking may also have a major effect. Onions and tomatoes losebetween 75% and 80% of their initial quercetin content afterboiling for 15 min, 65% after cooking in a microwave oven, and30% after frying (18). Steam cooking of vegetables, which avoidsleaching, is preferable. Potatoes contain up to 190 mg chlorogenicacid/kg, mainly in the skin (61). Extensive loss occurs duringcooking, and no remaining phenolic acids were found in Frenchfries or freeze-dried mashed potatoes (54).

Industrial food processing also affects polyphenol content.As with fruit peeling, dehulling of legume seeds and decorticationand bolting of cereals can result in a loss of some polyphenols.Grinding of plant tissues may lead to oxidative degradationof polyphenols as a result of cellular decompartmentation andcontact between cytoplasmic polyphenol oxidase and phenolicsubstrates present in the vacuoles. Polyphenols are then transformedinto brown pigments that are polymerized to different degrees.This unwanted process can occur, for example, during the processof making jam or compote from fruit. Production of fruit juiceoften involves clarification or stabilization steps specificallyaimed at removing certain flavonoids responsible for discolorationand haze formation. Manufactured fruit juices thus have lowflavonoid content. The pectinolytic enzymes used during suchprocessing also hydrolyze the esters of hydroxycinnamic acid(62). Conversely, maceration operations facilitate diffusionof polyphenols in juice, as occurs during vinification of redwine. This maceration accounts for the fact that the polyphenolcontent of red wines is 10 times as high as that of white wines(63) and is also higher than that of grape juice (64).

Because of the wide range of existing polyphenols and the considerablenumber of factors that can modify their concentration in foods,no reference food-composition tables (as they exist for othermicronutrients such as vitamins) have yet been drawn up. Onlypartial data for certain polyphenols, such as flavonols andflavones, catechins, and isoflavones, have been published onthe basis of direct food analysis (11, 27) or bibliographiccompilations (37, 65). Since March 2003, a database in whichthe flavonoid contents of 225 selected foods were compiled from97 bibliographic sources has been available on the US Departmentof Agriculture website (66). A comprehensive composition tablefor polyphenols is essential; it should allow daily polyphenolconsumption to be calculated from dietary questionnaires. Polyphenolintake could then be correlated with the incidence of certaindiseases or early markers for these diseases in epidemiologicstudies, which would permit investigations of the protectiverole of these micronutrients.

Only partial information is available on the quantities of polyphenolsthat are consumed daily throughout the world. These data havebeen obtained through analysis of the main aglycones (afterhydrolysis of their glycosides and esters) in the foods mostwidely consumed by humans.

In 1976 Kuhnau (8) calculated that dietary flavonoid intakein the United States was ${approx}$ 1 g/d and consisted of the following:16% flavonols, flavones, and flavanones; 17% anthocyanins; 20%catechins; and 45% "biflavones." Although these figures wereobtained under poorly detailed conditions, they continue toserve as reference data. Certain studies have subsequently providedmore precise individual data concerning the intake of variousclasses of polyphenols. Flavonols have been more extensivelystudied. Consumption of these substances has been estimatedat ${approx}$ 20–25 mg/d in the United States, Denmark, and Holland(67-69). In Italy, consumption ranged from 5 to 125 mg/d, andthe mean value was 35 mg/d (70). The intake of flavanones issimilar to or possibly higher than that of flavonols, with amean consumption of 28.3 mg hesperetin/d in Finland (71). Becausecitrus fruit is practically the sole source of flavanones, ingestionof these substances is probably greater in regions where thesefruits are produced, such as southern Europe. Anthocyanin consumptionwas studied only in Finland, where high amounts of berries areeaten, and was found to be 82 mg/d on average, although someintakes exceeded 200 mg/d (72).

Consumption of soya in the Asian countries is ${approx}$ 10–35 g/d,which is equivalent to a mean intake of 25–40 mg isoflavones/d,with a maximum intake of 100 mg/d (23, 73, 74). Americans andEuropeans, who eat little soya, consume only a few milligramsof isoflavones per day. Nevertheless, the incorporation of growingquantities of soya extracts into manufactured food productscould result in an increase in isoflavone intake. Women undergoingphytoestrogen replacement therapy for menopause consume between30 and 70 mg isoflavones/d in the form of soya extract capsules(75).

In Spain the total consumption of catechins and proanthocyanidindimers and trimers has been estimated at 18–31 mg/d, andthe main sources are apples, pears, grapes, and red wine (76).Consumption of monomer flavonols in Holland is significantlyhigher (50 mg/d), and the principal sources are tea, chocolate,apples, and pears (27). Ingestion of more highly polymerizedproanthocyanidins could be as high as several hundred milligramsper day as previously suggested (42), but there are still noreliable data.

Consumption of hydroxycinnamic acids may vary highly accordingto coffee consumption. Some persons who drink several cups perday may ingest as much as 500–800 mg hydroxycinnamic acids/d,whereas subjects who do not drink coffee and who also eat smallquantities of fruit and vegetables do not ingest >25 mg/d(54). A German study estimated daily consumption of hydroxycinnamicacids and hydroxybenzoic acids at 211 and 11 mg/d, respectively.Caffeic acid intake alone was 206 mg/d, and the principal sourceswere coffee (which provides 92% of caffeic acid) and fruit andfruit juices combined (source of 59% of p-coumaric acid) (65).

Various authors have noted a high variability in polyphenolintake. Intake of phenolic acids ranged from 6 to 987 mg/d inGermany (65). The mean consumption of flavonols and flavonesin the Dutch population was 23 mg/d; values at the 10th and90th percentiles were 4 and 46 mg/d, respectively; and somesubjects consumed up to 100 mg/d (69). The main reason for thesevariations is individual food preferences. When polyphenol contentis expressed as the amount provided by a food serving, as inTable 1

, the consumption of one particular food, such as berriesfor anthocyanins or coffee for hydroxycinnamic acids, clearlyappears to be capable of markedly changing the total polyphenolintake. If mean values are required, the addition of the intakesof flavonols, flavanones, flavanols (monomers, dimers, and trimers),and isoflavones gives a total daily consumption of 100–150mg in Western populations, to which must be added the considerablyvariable intake of hydroxycinnamic acids, anthocyanins, andproanthocyanidins. Finally, the total polyphenol intake probablycommonly reaches 1 g/d in people who eat several servings offruit and vegetables per day. Note that it is really difficultto follow a diet totally free of polyphenols. Because polyphenolintake is difficult to evaluate by using dietary questionnaires,biomarkers for polyphenol exposure would be very useful. A fewstudies have tried to correlate flavonol, flavanone, and isoflavoneintakes with plasma concentrations or urinary excretion of metabolites(77-82), but we are not yet able to propose a reliable measurementin urine or plasma samples that could reflect the long-termintake of the various polyphenols.

It is important to realize that the polyphenols that are themost common in the human diet are not necessarily the most activewithin the body, either because they have a lower intrinsicactivity or because they are poorly absorbed from the intestine,highly metabolized, or rapidly eliminated. In addition, themetabolites that are found in blood and target organs and thatresult from digestive or hepatic activity may differ from thenative substances in terms of biological activity. Extensiveknowledge of the bioavailability of polyphenols is thus essentialif their health effects are to be understood.

Metabolism of polyphenols occurs via a common pathway (83).The aglycones can be absorbed from the small intestine. However,most polyphenols are present in food in the form of esters,glycosides, or polymers that cannot be absorbed in their nativeform. These substances must be hydrolyzed by intestinal enzymesor by the colonic microflora before they can be absorbed. Whenthe flora is involved, the efficiency of absorption is oftenreduced because the flora also degrades the aglycones that itreleases and produces various simple aromatic acids in the process.During the course of absorption, polyphenols are conjugatedin the small intestine and later in the liver. This processmainly includes methylation, sulfation, and glucuronidation.This is a metabolic detoxication process common to many xenobioticsthat restricts their potential toxic effects and facilitatestheir biliary and urinary elimination by increasing their hydrophilicity.The conjugation mechanisms are highly efficient, and aglyconesare generally either absent in blood or present in low concentrationsafter consumption of nutritional doses. Circulating polyphenolsare conjugated derivatives that are extensively bound to albumin.Polyphenols are able to penetrate tissues, particularly thosein which they are metabolized, but their ability to accumulatewithin specific target tissues needs to be further investigated.Polyphenols and their derivatives are eliminated chiefly inurine and bile. Polyphenols are secreted via the biliary routeinto the duodenum, where they are subjected to the action ofbacterial enzymes, especially ß-glucuronidase, inthe distal segments of the intestine, after which they may bereabsorbed. This enterohepatic recycling may lead to a longerpresence of polyphenols within the body.

Intestinal absorption and metabolism
Much about the intestinal mechanisms of the gastrointestinalabsorption of polyphenols remains unknown. Most polyphenolsare probably too hydrophilic to penetrate the gut wall by passivediffusion, but the membrane carriers that could be involvedin polyphenol absorption have not been identified. To date,the unique active transport mechanism that has been describedis a Na⁺-dependent saturable transport mechanism involved incinnamic and ferulic acid absorption in the rat jejunum (84).

In foods, all flavonoids except flavanols are found in glycosylatedforms, and glycosylation influences absorption. The fate ofglycosides in the stomach is not clear. Experiments using surgicallytreated rats in which absorption was restricted to the stomachshowed that absorption at the gastric level is possible forsome flavonoids, such as quercetin and daidzein, but not fortheir glycosides (85, 86). Most of the glycosides probably resistacid hydrolysis in the stomach and thus arrive intact in theduodenum (87). Only aglycones and some glucosides can be absorbedin the small intestine, whereas polyphenols linked to a rhamnosemoiety must reach the colon and be hydrolyzed by rhamnosidasesof the microflora before absorption (88, 89). The same probablyapplies to polyphenols linked to arabinose or xylose, althoughthis question has not been specifically studied. Because absorptionoccurs less readily in the colon than in the small intestinebecause of a smaller exchange area and a lower density of transportsystems, as a general rule, glycosides with rhamnose are absorbedless rapidly and less efficiently than are aglycones and glucosides.This has been clearly shown in humans for quercetin glycosides:maximum absorption occurs 0.5–0.7 h after ingestion ofquercetin 4'-glucoside and 6–9 h after ingestion of thesame quantity of rutin (quercetin-3ß-rutinoside).The bioavailability of rutin is only 15–20% of that ofquercetin 4'-glucoside (90, 91). Similarly, absorption of quercetinis more rapid and efficient after ingestion of onions, whichare rich in glucosides, than after ingestion of apples containingboth glucosides and various other glycosides (92). In the caseof quercetin glucosides, absorption occurs in the small intestine,and the efficiency of absorption is higher than that for theaglycone itself (93, 94). The underlying mechanism by whichglucosylation facilitates quercetin absorption has been partlyelucidated. Hollman et al suggested that glucosides could betransported into enterocytes by the sodium-dependent glucosetransporter SGLT1 (93). They could then be hydrolyzed insidethe cells by a cytosolic ß-glucosidase (95). Anotherpathway involves the lactase phloridzine hydrolase, a glucosidaseof the brush border membrane of the small intestine that catalyzesextracellular hydrolysis of some glucosides, which is followedby diffusion of the aglycone across the brush border (96). Bothenzymes are probably involved, but their relative contributionfor the various glucosides remains to be clarified. Quercetin3-glucoside, which is not a substrate for cytosolic ß-glucosidase,is certainly absorbed after hydrolysis by lactase phloridzinehydrolase, at least in rats, whereas hydrolysis of quercetin4'-glucoside seems to involve both pathways (97, 98). In humans,whatever the mechanism of deglucosylation, the kinetics of plasmaconcentrations are similar after ingestion of quercetin 3-glucosideor quercetin 4'-glucoside (99). Isoflavone glycosides presentin soya products can also be deglycosylated by ß-glucosidasesfrom the human small intestine (95, 96). However, the effectof glucosylation on absorption is less clear for isoflavonesthan for quercetin. Aglycones present in fermented soya productswere shown to be better absorbed than were the glucosides ingestedfrom soybeans (100). However, a dose or matrix effect may explainthe difference in absorption observed in this first study. Setchellet al (101) showed that when pure daidzein, genistein, or theircorresponding 7-glucosides were administered orally to healthyvolunteers, a tendency toward greater bioavailability was observedwith the glucosides, as measured from the area under the curveof the plasma concentrations: 2.94, 4.54, 4.52, and 4.95 µg· h/mL for daidzein, genistein, daidzin, and genistin,respectively. However, in another human study, peak plasma concentrationswere markedly higher after aglycone ingestion than after glucosideingestion, and this effect was observed with low or high singledoses and after long-term intakes (102). In addition, hydrolysisof isoflavone glycosides into aglycones in a soy drink did notchange the bioavailability of the isoflavones in humans (103).No data are available for other polyphenols in humans, but notethat in rats, no enhancement of absorption was observed withglucosylation of naringenin and phlorizin (104, 105). Furthermore,diglucosylation of the lignan secoisolariciresinol decreasesits absorption (106).

Glycosylation does not influence the nature of the circulatingmetabolites. Intact glycosides of quercetin, daidzein, and genisteinwere not recovered in plasma or urine after ingestion as purecompounds or from complex food (107-110). For flavanones, onlytrace amounts of glycosides have been detected in human urine,corresponding to 0.02% of the administered dose of naringin(111). But a very high dose (500 mg) of the pure compound wasadministered in this study, and some metabolic processes mayhave been saturated by this nonnutritional intake. Anthocyaninsconstitute an exception, because intact glycosides are the majorcirculating forms. The explanation for this may lie in the instabilityof these molecules in the aglycone form or in a specific mechanismof absorption or metabolism for anthocyanins. Passamonti etal (112) have proposed that glycosides of anthocyanins may betransported by bilitranslocase at the gastric level, bacausethey have been shown to be good ligands for this carrier. Theycould also be directly converted into glucuronides by a UDPglucose dehydrogenase as suggested by Wu et al (113).

Proanthocyanidins differ from most other plant polyphenols becauseof their polymeric nature and high molecular weight. This particularfeature should limit their absorption through the gut barrier,and oligomers larger than trimers are unlikely to be absorbedin the small intestine in their native forms. In vitro experimentsusing single layers of Caco-2 cells as a model of absorptionin the small intestine showed that only the dimers and trimersof flavanols are able to cross the intestinal epithelium (114).Procyanidin B2 is very poorly absorbed in rats, whereas procyanidinB3 is not absorbed (115, 116). The possibility that procyanidinoligomers are hydrolyzed to mixtures of flavanol monomers anddimers in acidic conditions was suggested by Spencer et al fromin vitro experiments (117). However, purified procyanidin dimerB3, as well as grapeseed proanthocyanidins having a higher degreeof polymerization, are not degraded to more readily absorbablemonomers in rats (116). The stability of proanthocyanidins wasinvestigated in humans by regular analysis of gastric juicesampled with a gastric probe after ingestion of a proanthocyanidin-richcocoa beverage (118). This study confirmed that proanthocyanidinsare not degraded in the acidic conditions of the stomach invivo. A minor absorption of some procyanidin dimers seems possiblein humans. The procyanidin dimer B2 was detected in the plasmaof volunteers after ingestion of a cocoa beverage; however,the maximal plasma concentration that was reached 2 h afteringestion was much lower than that reached after a roughly equivalentintake of epicatechin (0.04 compared with 6.0 µmol/L)(119). Proanthocyanidins, which are among the most abundantdietary polyphenols, are very poorly absorbed and may exertonly local activity in the gastrointestinal tract or activitymediated by phenolic acids produced through microbial degradation.Their local action may nevertheless be important because theintestine is particularly exposed to oxidizing agents and maybe affected by inflammation and numerous diseases such as cancer(120). Polyphenol concentrations in the colon can reach severalhundred micromoles per liter (83), and together with a few carotenoids,polyphenols constitute the only dietary antioxidants presentin the colon, because vitamins C and E are absorbed in the uppersegments of the intestine.

Despite the scarcity of studies performed on the bioavailabilityof hydroxycinnamic acids, when ingested in the free form, thesecompounds are rapidly absorbed from the small intestine andare conjugated and, in particular, glucuronidated in the sameway that flavonoids are (54, 121). However these compounds arenaturally esterified in plant products, and this impairs theirabsorption. Human tissues (intestinal mucosa, liver) and biologicalfluids (plasma, gastric juice, duodenal fluid) do not possessesterases capable of hydrolyzing chlorogenic acid to releasecaffeic acid (122-124). This has also been observed in rats(125, 126). Only the colonic microflora would be capable ofcarrying out this hydrolysis, and some of the bacterial strainsinvolved have been identified (127). Consequently, as observedfor flavonoid glycosides that must be hydrolyzed by the microflora,the efficiency of absorption of phenolic acids is markedly reducedwhen they are present in the esterified form rather than inthe free form (123, 125, 128). In patients who have undergonecolonic ablation, caffeic acid was much better absorbed thanwas chlorogenic acid: 11% and 0.3% of the ingested doses wereexcreted in urine, respectively (123). Similarly, when chlorogenicacid was given by gavage to rats, no intact compound was detectedin plasma in the following 6 h, and the maximum concentrationsof metabolites obtained after administration of caffeic acidin the same conditions were 100-fold those of the metabolites(various glucuronidated or sulfated derivatives of caffeic andferulic acids) obtained after chlorogenic acid administration(125). Surprisingly, the plasma concentrations were maximalonly 30 min after gavage, which may seem inconsistent with hydrolysisof chlorogenic acid in the cecum. The same observation was madein a human study. When volunteers ingested coffee containinghigh amounts of esterified phenolic acids but no free caffeicacid, the peak plasma concentration of caffeic acid was observedonly 1 h after ingestion of the coffee (129). In this study,the alkaline hydrolysis of coffee showed that chlorogenic acidrepresented only 30% of the bound caffeic acid. Thus, a possibleexplanation is that other forms of caffeic acid present in coffeemay have been hydrolyzed in the upper part of the gut. Furthermore,the modes of administration used in both studies, ie, directstomach intubation in the rat study and ingestion of coffeealone by fasted volunteers in the second study, might allowa rapid transit to the colon and explain the rapid kineticsof appearance of plasma metabolites. However, these 2 studiesraise doubt about the total inability of the tissues to hydrolyzeesterified phenolic acids.

In addition to being esterified to simple acids, hydroxycinnamicacids may be bound to polysaccharides in plant cell walls; themain example of this is esterification of ferulic acid to arabinoxylansin the outer husks of cereals. Although free ferulic acid isreported to be rapidly and efficiently absorbed (up to 25%)from tomatoes in humans (130), its absorption after ingestionof cereals is expected to be much lower because of this esterification.Ferulic acid metabolites recovered in the urine of rats representonly 3% of the ingested dose when ferulic acid is provided aswheat bran, whereas the metabolites represent 50% of the dosewhen ferulic acid is provided as a pure compound (131). Anotherstudy showed that feruloyl esterases are present throughoutthe entire gastrointestinal tract, particularly in the intestinalmucosa, and that some of the ester bonds between ferulic acidand polysaccharides in cell walls may thus be hydrolyzed inthe small intestine (126). However, the role of feruloyl esterasesseems to be very limited, and absorption occurs mainly in thecolon after hydrolysis by enzymes of bacterial origin. Xylanasesdegrade the parietal polymers to small, soluble feruloyl oligosaccharides,and then esterases release free ferulic acid. Note that diferulicacids from cereal brans have been shown to be absorbed in rats(132).

The effects of the food matrix on the bioavailability of polyphenolshave not been examined in much detail. Direct interactions betweenpolyphenols and some components of food, such as binding toproteins and polysaccharides, can occur, and these interactionsmay affect absorption. Furthermore, more indirect effects ofthe diet on various parameters of gut physiology (pH, intestinalfermentations, biliary excretion, transit time, etc) may haveconsequences on the absorption of polyphenols. Enzymes and carriersinvolved in polyphenol absorption and metabolism may also beinduced or inhibited by the presence of some micronutrientsor xenobiotics. Interactions with milk proteins were consideredfirst because Serafini et al (133) reported that addition ofmilk to black tea abolished the increase in antioxidant potentialthat was observed when tea was consumed without milk. However,subsequent studies showed that addition of milk to black orgreen tea had no effect on the bioavailability of catechins,quercetin, or kaempferol in humans (134, 135). Some investigatorshave speculated that the presence of alcohol in red wine couldimprove the intestinal absorption of polyphenols by increasingtheir solubility. Ethanol was shown to enhance the absorptionof quercetin in rats, but only when present at a concentrationtoo high to be attained in the diet (>30%, by vol) (136).In humans, plasma concentrations of catechin metabolites weresimilar after consumption of red wine or dealcoholized red wine(137). Yet, 20% more catechin metabolites were excreted in urineafter red wine intake than after dealcoholized red wine intake,which indicates a possible role of ethanol in enhancing therate of polyphenol elimination, perhaps by a diuretic effect(138). On the other hand, tartaric acid, which is a major organicacid in wine, was shown to enhance the absorption of catechinin rats (139).

Existing data do not suggest a marked effect of the variousdiet components on polyphenol bioavailability. The absorptionof quercetin, catechin, and resveratrol in humans was recentlyshown to be broadly equivalent when these polyphenols were administeredin 3 different matrices: white wine, grape juice, and vegetablejuice (140). According to Hendrich (141), neither the backgrounddiet or type of soy food nor the presence of 40 g wheat fibersignificantly alters the apparent absorption of isoflavones.However, more studies are needed, especially on dietary fiber.Dietary fiber is generally associated with polyphenols in plantfoods and stimulates intestinal fermentation, which could influencethe production of particular microbial metabolites. Administrationof polyphenols without a food matrix could markedly affect theirbioavailability. With regard to flavonols, much higher plasmaconcentrations were achieved when quercetin glucosides wereadministered to fasted volunteers in the form of a water-alcoholsolution (up to 5 µmol/L) (99) than when an equivalentquantity was ingested with foods such as onions, apples, ora complex meal (0.3–0.75 nmol/L) (92, 107). This suggeststhat the consumption of any food may limit polyphenol absorptionand that high plasma concentrations would be obtained only ifsupplements were taken separately from meals.

The role of the colonic microflora
Polyphenols that are not absorbed in the small intestine reachthe colon. The microflora hydrolyzes glycosides into aglyconesand extensively metabolizes the aglycones into various aromaticacids (8, 142). Aglycones are split by the opening of the heterocycleat different points depending on their chemical structure: flavonolsmainly produce hydroxyphenylacetic acids, flavones and flavanonesmainly produce hydroxyphenylpropionic acids, and flavanols mainlyproduce phenylvalerolactones and hydroxyphenylpropionic acids.These acids are further metabolized to derivatives of benzoicacid. The microbial metabolites are absorbed and conjugatedwith glycine, glucuronic acid, or sulfate. The cleavage andmetabolic pathways are well established in animals, and theinfluence of chemical structure on degradation is known. Forexample, the absence of a free hydroxyl in position 5, 7, or4' protects the compound from cleavage (143). However, dataare still limited in humans, so it is possible that new microbialmetabolites will be identified. Interindividual variations andthe influence of the microflora composition and of the usualdiet on microbial metabolite production have to be evaluated.Recent studies have shown that plasma concentrations and urinaryexcretion of microbial metabolites in humans can be higher thanthose of tissular metabolites, especially for polyphenols suchas wine polyphenols that are not easily absorbed (128, 144,145). Thus, the identification and quantification of microbialmetabolites constitute an important field of research. Somemicrobial metabolites may have a physiologic effect; for example,hydroxyphenylacetic acids have been suggested to inhibit plateletaggregation (146). Besides, among the wide array of aromaticacids with low molecular weight, some may be used as biomarkersfor polyphenol intake. An association between polyphenol intakeand the amount of excreted hippuric acid was found after consumptionof black tea or a crude extract from Equisenum arvense (147,148). However, hippuric acid is not a degradation product ofcatechin and can be derived from sources other than polyphenols,such as quinic acid and the aromatic amino acids; thus, it isnot a suitable biomarker of polyphenol intake (144). 3-Hydroxyhippuricacid may be a more valid biomarker (124).

Specific active metabolites are produced by the colonic microflora.This is the case with lignans from linseed, which are metabolizedto enterolactone and enterodiol, which have agonistic or antagonisticeffects on estrogens (149, 150). Similarly, equol produced fromsoya daidzein appears to have phytoestrogenic properties equivalentto or even greater than those of the original isoflavone (151,152). There is a great interindividual variability in the capacityto produce equol. Only 30-40% of the occidental people excretesignificant quantities of equol after consumption of isoflavones,and these persons are called "equol producers" (152, 153). Thecorresponding percentage among Asian populations is unknown,but a recent study suggested that the percentage in Japanesemen could be as high as 60% (154). The ability or inabilityof persons to produce equol seems to remain the same for atleast several years (152, 155). The composition of the intestinalflora plays a major role. Inoculation of germ-free rats withhuman flora from equol producers confers on these rats the capacityto produce this metabolite, whereas colonization with florafrom non–equol producers leaves the rats incapable ofproducing equol (156). Equol is not recovered in plasma frominfants who are fed soy-based formulas, which suggests thatthe bacteria responsible for its production are not developedin the first months of life (157). Three strains of bacteriaare reportedly able to convert pure daidzein to equol in vitro:Streptococcus intermedius ssp., Ruminococcus productus spp.,and Bacteroides ovatus spp. (158). The possibility of convertingnonproducers to producers by food must be investigated. Equolproducers tend to consume less fat and more carbohydrates aspercentages of energy than do non–equol producers (159,160). Consumption of dietary fiber has been suspected to affectequol production by favoring the growth of certain bacterialspecies. However, supplementation with 16 g wheat bran/d didnot increase equol production in young women (159). In mice,equol production increased with the addition of fructooligosaccharidesin the diet (161). But this result needs to be confirmed inhumans because of obvious interspecies differences, which areshown by the fact that rats are constitutive equol producers.The effect of adaptation of the intestinal flora to the consumptionof isoflavones is not clear. Lu et al (162) observed an increasein equol production after 1 mo of isoflavone consumption. Somenon-equol-producing women even acquired the ability to produceequol after consuming soymilk for 2 wk (153). But Lampe et al(163) did not observe any effect on equol production of a 1-moadaptation in comparison with a 4-d supplementation. A morecomprehensive knowledge of the factors that may influence equolproduction is all the more essential because Setchell et al(152) convincingly proposed that equol producers might gainmore benefits from soya consumption than would nonproducers.

Conjugation and nature of metabolites
Once absorbed, polyphenols are subjected to 3 main types ofconjugation: methylation, sulfation, and glucuronidation. Catechol-O-methyltransferase catalyzes the transfer of a methyl group from S-adenosyl-L-methionineto polyphenols having an o-diphenolic (catechol) moiety. Sucha reaction is well known for quercetin, catechin, caffeic acid,and luteolin, and Wu et al (113) recently showed for the firsttime the methylation of cyanidin to peonidin in humans. Themethylation generally occurs predominantly in the 3' positionof the polyphenol, but a minor proportion of 4'-O-methylatedproduct is also formed. Note that a substantial amount of 4'-methylepigallocatechinwas detected in human plasma after ingestion of tea (164, 165).Catechol-O-methyl transferase is present in a wide range oftissues. Its activity is highest in the liver and the kidneys(166, 167) although significant methylation was reported forcatechin in the small intestine of rats (168). Sulfotransferasescatalyze the transfer of a sulfate moiety from 3'-phosphoadenosine-5'-phosphosulfateto a hydroxyl group on various substrates (steroids, bile acids,polyphenols, etc). Neither the isoforms that are specificallyinvolved in the conjugation of polyphenols nor the positionsof sulfation for the various polyphenols have yet been clearlyidentified, but sulfation clearly occurs mainly in the liver(166, 169). UDP-glucuronosyltransferases are membrane-boundenzymes that are located in the endoplasmic reticulum in manytissues and that catalyze the transfer of a glucuronic acidfrom UDP-glucuronic acid to steroids, bile acids, polyphenols,and thousands of dietary constituents and xenobiotics. The presenceof glucuronidated metabolites in the mesenteric or portal bloodafter perfusion of polyphenols in the small intestine of ratsshows that glucuronidation of polyphenols first occurs in theenterocytes before further conjugation in the liver (170-172).This is probably the case in humans as well, because in humansthe in vitro glucuronidation of quercetin and luteolin by microsomesfrom the intestine is markedly higher than that by microsomesfrom the liver (173). About 15 isoforms of UDP-glucuronosyltransferaseshave been identified in humans, and these isoforms have broadand overlapping substrate specificities and different tissuedistribution (174). The subfamily of UDP-glucuronosyltransferasescalled UGT1A that is localized in the intestine probably playsa major role in the first-pass metabolism of polyphenols. Theseisoenzymes have a wide polymorphic expression pattern that couldresult in a high interindividual variability in polyphenol glucuronidation.The active isoenzymes of the 1A class seem to differ accordingto the polyphenol considered (173, 175). In vitro glucuronidationof quercetin, luteolin, or isorhamnetin by rat or human microsomesin the intestine and the liver showed that, even if the natureof the glucuronides formed is constant, the proportion of thevarious metabolites varies widely depending on the species andorgan (173, 176, 177). The highest rate of conjugation is observedat the 7-position, and the 5-position does not appear to bea site for glucuronidation. For most flavonoids, a significantproportion of the glucuronides that are formed in the intestinalmucosa are secreted back to the gut lumen, which reduces netabsorption (178, 179). The transporter multiresistant protein2 (MRP2) or the P-glycoprotein may be involved in this efflux(180, 181). The proportion of glucuronides that are secretedtoward the mucosal side depends markedly on the structure ofthe polyphenol (0–52% of the initial dose) (182). Intestinalexcretion of glucuronides does not occur with catechin and ferulicacid, which indicates that this is not a mechanism of eliminationfor all polyphenols (131, 168, 182).

The metabolic fate in the liver of the conjugates that are producedin the intestine is not yet clear. After penetration into HepG2cells, quercetin 7-glucuronide and quercetin 3'-O-glucuronideundergo 2 types of metabolism: methylation of the catechol anddeglucuronidation followed by 3'-sulfation (183). However, inthe same conditions, quercetin 4'-glucuronide is not metabolized.This could result from a lower rate of penetration into thecells or a lower affinity of the metabolizing enzymes for thissubstrate. A complex set of conjugating enzymes and carriersystems is probably involved in the regulation of uptake andthe production and release of the various polyphenol metabolitesby the hepatocytes, as shown for other conjugates (184, 185).The activity of these enzymes and carrier systems may dependon the nature of the polyphenol and may be influenced by geneticpolymorphisms that lead to important interindividual differencesin the capacity to metabolize polyphenols.

The relative importance of the 3 types of conjugation (methylation,sulfation, and glucuronidation) appears to vary according tothe nature of the substrate and the dose ingested. Sulfationis generally a higher-affinity, lower-capacity pathway thanis glucuronidation, so that when the ingested dose increases,a shift from sulfation toward glucuronidation occurs (186).The balance between sulfation and glucuronidation of polyphenolsalso seems to be affected by species, sex, and food deprivation(187). Moreover, inhibition of methylation by a specific inhibitorshifts metabolism of quercetin glucuronides toward sulfationin HepG2 cells (183). Regardless of the respective contributionsof methylation, sulfation, and glucuronidation, in general,the capacity for conjugation is high. The concentration of freeaglycone is usually very low in plasma after the intake of anutritional dose, except for tea catechins (up to 77% for epigallocatechingallate) (164). Saturation of the conjugation processes hasbeen observed in rats administered high doses and rats givenan acute supply of polyphenols by gavage (166, 170). Competitiveinhibition of conjugation could also occur in the presence ofvarious polyphenols and xenobiotics in the intestine, but ithas never been studied. In these conditions, significant amountsof free aglycones could circulate in blood, probably with biologicaleffects different from those of conjugated metabolites.

Identification of circulating metabolites has been undertakenfor only a few polyphenols. This identification must includenot only the nature and number of the conjugating groups butalso the positions of these groups on the polyphenol structurebecause these positions can affect the biological propertiesof the conjugates (176). After consumption of onions containingglucosides of quercetin, the major circulating compounds inhuman plasma were identified as quercetin 3-O-glucuronide, 3'-O-methylquercetin3-O-glucuronide, and quercetin 3'-O-sulfate (188). However,analysis by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometryof human plasma samples obtained in very similar conditionsdid not confirm the presence of sulfated quercetin (109). Forother polyphenols, only scarce data on the proportions of thevarious types of conjugates and the percentages of free formsin plasma are available (101, 164, 175, 189-192). The main circulatingcompounds are generally glucuronides.

Plasma transport and partitioning into lipid structures
Polyphenol metabolites are not free in the blood. In vitro incubationof quercetin in normal human plasma showed that quercetin isextensively bound to plasma proteins (99% for concentrationsup to 15 µmol/L), whereas binding to VLDL is not significant(<0.5%) (193). Metabolites of quercetin are also extensivelybound to plasma proteins in the plasma of rats fed a quercetin-enricheddiet (88). Albumin is the primary protein responsible for thebinding. The affinity of polyphenols for albumin varies accordingto their chemical structure. Kaempferol and isorhamnetin, whichdiffer from quercetin in the nature of the B-ring substitution,have an affinity for human serum albumin that is similar tothat of quercetin (194). In contrast, substitution of 3-OH markedlyweakens binding to albumin, as shown for rutin and isoquercitrin,the 3-O-glycosides of quercetin (195). The effect of sulfationand glucuronidation is unknown, but it probably depends highlyon the position of substitution. Hydroxycinnamic acids, especiallyferulic and coumaric acids, have a low affinity for bovine serumalbumin but may have a different affinity for albumin of humanorigin (196). No data are available for the other polyphenols.It must be kept in mind that although the intrinsic affinityof circulating polyphenol conjugates for albumin may be muchweaker than that of quercetin itself, the physiologic concentrationof serum albumin ( ${approx}$ 0.6 mmol/L) is probably large enough to allowtheir extensive binding. The degree of binding to albumin mayhave consequences for the rate of clearance of metabolites andfor their delivery to cells and tissues. The conventional viewis that cellular uptake is proportional to the unbound concentrationof metabolites. Yet, variations in local pH at specific sitesmay induce conformational changes in albumin, which lead todissociation of the ligand-albumin complex. Conformational changesin albumin have been shown to be induced by nonspecific interactionswith various membranes (197). Whether such changes could facilitatethe cellular uptake of ligands such as polyphenol metabolitesis unclear. However, incubations of quercetin in human wholeblood or in suspensions of erythrocytes in the absence of plasmaproteins suggests that binding to albumin could considerablydecrease the association of quercetin with these cells (193).The effect of albumin binding on the biological activity ofpolyphenols is unclear. Does the bound ligand have some biologicalactivity, or does the polyphenol have to be in the free formto be active? Dangles et al (195) showed that the catechol moietyof albumin-bound quercetin remains accessible to oxidizing agentssuch as periodate. If this key structural element of quercetinis also accessible to free radicals, this suggests that quercetincould exert its antioxidant activity even when it is bound toalbumin. However, the biological properties of polyphenols arecertainly not limited only to their antioxidant capacity; thus,binding to albumin may have a considerable effect.

The partitioning of polyphenols and their metabolites betweenaqueous and lipid phases is largely in favor of the aqueousphase because of their hydrophilicity and binding to albumin.However, in some lipophilic membrane models, some polyphenolspenetrate the membrane to various extents (198-202). Quercetinshowed the deepest interaction, probably because of its abilityto assume a planar conformation (203). At physiologic pH, mostpolyphenols interact with the polar head groups of phospholipidsat the membrane surface via the formation of hydrogen bondsthat involve the hydroxyl groups of the polyphenols (

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HHS and USDA PRESS CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEW DIETARY GUIDELINES FOR AMERICANS With Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson and Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman Washington D.C. January 12, 2005