tips for good health -1 jan2022 Mr Lalit Kapoor - CA USA
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nandha Dynamic
Jan 23, 2022, 8:07:00 AM1/23/22
to nandha
••••• WELCOME •••••
Welcome all to this health group. The purpose of this group is to empower its members to take control of their health and get off all medications they might be taking for any chronic conditions, by educating them in plant based whole food (PBWF) diet and active, Intermittent Fasting (IF) and Therapeutic fasting based lifestyle.
Before we proceed some housekeeping rules:
1. No greeting messages.
2. No forwards unless accompanied with your personal detailed comments.
3. All discussions related to chronic health issues only.
4. If you are posting a video please post a YouTube link if available.
5. No two way conversations beyond the first round.
6. No discussion on Corona virus.
Many members who have been referred by others may not know me so here is my introduction:
I am Lalit M. Kapoor and I live in SanFrancisco Bay Area; Berkeley to be precise. I graduated from IIT Kanpur in 1971 and moved to UCLA for my MBA in 1973. I have been living in US since.
I was fortunate enough to find buyers for the companies I started and as a result I retired from business life in 2005. I have been pursuing health issues and anti aging field only as a passion.
Nine years ago I watched a documentary “Forks over Knives”. It resonated with me and motivated me to change my diet and lifestyle by following the advice of a group of doctors who recommend Plant Based Whole Food (PBWF) diet. I lost 50 pounds and got off five different prescription medications within 18 months including Diabetes, Hypertension, Osteo Arthritis, Hypothyroid, Gout, Sleep Apnia and seasonal allergies. Besides curing these illnesses, I felt more energetic than I had ever felt in the prior three decades, even completing my first half marathon.
In 2017. In 2017 I formed a WhatsApp group of 1971 IITK batch mates and shared what I had learned. Many of my batch mates reported similar experiences and were successful in getting off some or all medications they were taking for chronic conditions. They referred more people, one thing led to another and since then I have created over 170 different health groups and coached over 32,000 members.
Based on that experience and new research findings in the field of nutrition and health, I have further fine tuned my recommendations. Members are now getting off their medications in as little as two weeks. How long it takes you, is a function of your medical history and your compliance to the diet and lifestyle recommendations. I made my changes at the age of 63, but I have found that others have even benefitted at the late age of 85. I will share with you some of their testimonials as we go along.
In this group I will be writing posts and be your coach. I will attach short videos on the subject and talks by various doctors and professors at leading medical colleges like UCSF, USC, Cleveland Heart Clinic and others. Most videos are short 5-10 minutes but few talks are longer. I request you all to watch these videos because my posts will be short and not cover the subject matter in greater details. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth a thousand pictures.
As we progress you can ask questions on the subject matter being covered. You will be given opportunities to ask questions. My experience has shown that most initial questions get addressed in following posts, so for this reason Q&A session will be held once a week. I will block posting by members and open it up for a day after each week.
During the first three weeks the focus will be on:
• What to eat and what not to eat
• When to eat and when not to eat
• How to eat and cook
• How to detoxify our body
• Physical activity
• Emotional Health
• Spiritual Health
After that during fourth week we will cover politics of Food, Pharma and Health Care industries and the role of government and media.
The second month will be dedicated to discussions on various chronic diseases.
After 3-4 weeks as members begin to see improvements in their diseases and health, they start sharing their progress.
Welcome all to this health group. The purpose of this group is to empower its members to take control of their health and get off all medications they might be taking for any chronic conditions, by educating them in plant based whole food (PBWF) diet and active, Intermittent Fasting (IF) and Therapeutic fasting based lifestyle.
Before we proceed some housekeeping rules:
1. No greeting messages.
2. No forwards unless accompanied with your personal detailed comments.
3. All discussions related to chronic health issues only.
4. If you are posting a video please post a YouTube link if available.
5. No two way conversations beyond the first round.
6. No discussion on Corona virus.
Many members who have been referred by others may not know me so here is my introduction:
I am Lalit M. Kapoor and I live in SanFrancisco Bay Area; Berkeley to be precise. I graduated from IIT Kanpur in 1971 and moved to UCLA for my MBA in 1973. I have been living in US since.
I was fortunate enough to find buyers for the companies I started and as a result I retired from business life in 2005. I have been pursuing health issues and anti aging field only as a passion.
Nine years ago I watched a documentary “Forks over Knives”. It resonated with me and motivated me to change my diet and lifestyle by following the advice of a group of doctors who recommend Plant Based Whole Food (PBWF) diet. I lost 50 pounds and got off five different prescription medications within 18 months including Diabetes, Hypertension, Osteo Arthritis, Hypothyroid, Gout, Sleep Apnia and seasonal allergies. Besides curing these illnesses, I felt more energetic than I had ever felt in the prior three decades, even completing my first half marathon.
In 2017. In 2017 I formed a WhatsApp group of 1971 IITK batch mates and shared what I had learned. Many of my batch mates reported similar experiences and were successful in getting off some or all medications they were taking for chronic conditions. They referred more people, one thing led to another and since then I have created over 170 different health groups and coached over 32,000 members.
Based on that experience and new research findings in the field of nutrition and health, I have further fine tuned my recommendations. Members are now getting off their medications in as little as two weeks. How long it takes you, is a function of your medical history and your compliance to the diet and lifestyle recommendations. I made my changes at the age of 63, but I have found that others have even benefitted at the late age of 85. I will share with you some of their testimonials as we go along.
In this group I will be writing posts and be your coach. I will attach short videos on the subject and talks by various doctors and professors at leading medical colleges like UCSF, USC, Cleveland Heart Clinic and others. Most videos are short 5-10 minutes but few talks are longer. I request you all to watch these videos because my posts will be short and not cover the subject matter in greater details. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth a thousand pictures.
As we progress you can ask questions on the subject matter being covered. You will be given opportunities to ask questions. My experience has shown that most initial questions get addressed in following posts, so for this reason Q&A session will be held once a week. I will block posting by members and open it up for a day after each week.
During the first three weeks the focus will be on:
• What to eat and what not to eat
• When to eat and when not to eat
• How to eat and cook
• How to detoxify our body
• Physical activity
• Emotional Health
• Spiritual Health
After that during fourth week we will cover politics of Food, Pharma and Health Care industries and the role of government and media.
The second month will be dedicated to discussions on various chronic diseases.
After 3-4 weeks as members begin to see improvements in their diseases and health, they start sharing their progress.
The experience has shown that most people who make the recommended changes are able to get off some or most medications within two months by the time this course ends. Specially most patients of Hypertension, Diabetes and high cholesterol are able to get off medications. As other illnesses do not have such easily measurable markers, it is difficult to asses progress. Most members report feeling younger and more energetic.
It is highly recommended that members of the group share the posts with their spouses and watch the videos and documentaries together. The enrollment in WhatsApp groups has now stopped, please don’t send any requests for adding members. The Facebook group enrollment will remain open for another week as it allows access to prior posts. I start a new group every month. Most of what I have to say will get covered in two months. The past members report to me that during the first month it takes them about 45 minutes to an hour each day to read the posts and watch the attached videos.
Upon completion of the discussion at the end of the second month, members of this group will be invited to join the other groups of graduated members which are organized geographically. At these geographical locations continuing activities are held.
While we were waiting for others to join, I had recommend that you watch some documentaries. The first one “Forks Over Knives” is a prerequisite for this group and hopefully you all have watched it. If not please do so ASAP. There is also a second part of this documentary called “Forks Over Knives: Extended Interviews”. Please watch that also. I will post a list of other documentaries to watch later.
Those who are critically ill and/or facing a major decision, can write to me directly and I can forward them the posts and videos on their specific illness out of sequence. Please do not use the direct line for trivial questions or questions of common interest. Those questions should only be asked in the group. There are 12 groups running in parallel and over 4,000 members have joined. Some of the members are repeating the course. I request them not to get ahead of the subject matter and follow the pace. When questions are asked in any group which are relevant to all, I will share them in all groups.
It is highly recommended that members of the group share the posts with their spouses and watch the videos and documentaries together. The enrollment in WhatsApp groups has now stopped, please don’t send any requests for adding members. The Facebook group enrollment will remain open for another week as it allows access to prior posts. I start a new group every month. Most of what I have to say will get covered in two months. The past members report to me that during the first month it takes them about 45 minutes to an hour each day to read the posts and watch the attached videos.
Upon completion of the discussion at the end of the second month, members of this group will be invited to join the other groups of graduated members which are organized geographically. At these geographical locations continuing activities are held.
While we were waiting for others to join, I had recommend that you watch some documentaries. The first one “Forks Over Knives” is a prerequisite for this group and hopefully you all have watched it. If not please do so ASAP. There is also a second part of this documentary called “Forks Over Knives: Extended Interviews”. Please watch that also. I will post a list of other documentaries to watch later.
Those who are critically ill and/or facing a major decision, can write to me directly and I can forward them the posts and videos on their specific illness out of sequence. Please do not use the direct line for trivial questions or questions of common interest. Those questions should only be asked in the group. There are 12 groups running in parallel and over 4,000 members have joined. Some of the members are repeating the course. I request them not to get ahead of the subject matter and follow the pace. When questions are asked in any group which are relevant to all, I will share them in all groups.
••• Chronic vs Other •••
DISEASES
Most health issues can be categorized into five main groups:
1. Congenital Issues: These are issues that you are born with. Some examples are:
• Heart Defects
• Neural Tube Defects
• Down Syndrome
Birth defects are caused by genetic problems and exposure to infections and medications or chemicals during pregnancy.
2. Infectious Diseases are disorders caused by micro organisms like bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites. Some common examples are: Influenza, Cholera, Smallpox, Measles, Bird Flue, Corona virus etc. .
3. Posture or work related issues like repetitive movements.
4. Acute Situations requiring ER treatment like accidents, bone fractures, heart attacks etc.
5. Chronic Issues: Most of these are are caused due to poor diet and lifestyle. With some exceptions like type1 diabetes, most are experienced in adult and old age. Major Chronic Diseases are: Hypertension, Heart disease, CVD, Cancer, COPD (asthma), Stroke, Type2 Diabetes, Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), Fatty Liver and Cirrhosis, Auto Immune Disease, Arthritis, Alzheimer’s and others.
The focus of this group will be primarily on Chronic diseases. What causes them and how they can be reversed by changing diet and lifestyle.
DISEASES
Most health issues can be categorized into five main groups:
1. Congenital Issues: These are issues that you are born with. Some examples are:
• Heart Defects
• Neural Tube Defects
• Down Syndrome
Birth defects are caused by genetic problems and exposure to infections and medications or chemicals during pregnancy.
2. Infectious Diseases are disorders caused by micro organisms like bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites. Some common examples are: Influenza, Cholera, Smallpox, Measles, Bird Flue, Corona virus etc. .
3. Posture or work related issues like repetitive movements.
4. Acute Situations requiring ER treatment like accidents, bone fractures, heart attacks etc.
5. Chronic Issues: Most of these are are caused due to poor diet and lifestyle. With some exceptions like type1 diabetes, most are experienced in adult and old age. Major Chronic Diseases are: Hypertension, Heart disease, CVD, Cancer, COPD (asthma), Stroke, Type2 Diabetes, Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), Fatty Liver and Cirrhosis, Auto Immune Disease, Arthritis, Alzheimer’s and others.
The focus of this group will be primarily on Chronic diseases. What causes them and how they can be reversed by changing diet and lifestyle.
•WHAT IS A PBWF DIET?
Plant Based Whole Food (PBWF) diet consists of following:
- Only plant based foods. No Animal Products. No fish, eggs or dairy. No butter or ghee. Only honey is acceptable; that also only after one is off medications and in moderation.
- No Refined or highly processed foods. No sugar or vegetable oil.
Processing to the extent that you can do at home with your hands is allowed. So pealing, slicing, dicing, juicing, meshing and cooking is allowed.
In the last 100+ years Food and Drug Industries have become very powerful and are able to influence the Government, Media and the Medical establishment. As a result, the information flowing to us is biased in their favor, and the truth is often hidden from us or distorted. Many views we have today about food and health are a result of that distortion.
Our goal in this group is to understand the true picture .
I will communicate to you what the new thinking is in a certain group of advanced medical doctors who have come to a realization, that greed has taken over common sense in the past century. The belief that when you are sick you should take medicine and the disease will be cured, started with the discovery of antibiotics. At the time, most diseases were infectious diseases and antibiotics worked like a charm. Over the years, we got accustomed to the idea of taking a pill when ill.
As the world wars got over, and we became wealthier as a society and even the poor started eating like kings, the chronic diseases, which only affected the rich earlier, became common. It was natural for us to expect miracle drugs from our doctors and they, along with the pharmaceutical industry were quick to oblige. However, this time, the drugs did not cure the disease, so the doctors came up with the explanation that the lifestyle diseases are not curable and doctors can only help manage them by keeping the symptoms in check through lifelong medications.
Some doctors, who had taken up medical career with a sincere desire to help humanity by curing the diseases, slowly became disenchanted and started looking for answers elsewhere. They observed that just like the wild animals today and our ancestors of 10,000 years ago, human organism is self healing and symptoms are a natural compensatory response of the body. By depressing the symptoms, we are interfering in the body’s self healing mechanism. They further found, that over the years the profit motive of food industry had changed the nature of food to refined and processed food like products that bore little resemblance to food as we knew and were in fact:
(a) Increasing the toxicity of the body and
(b) Creating deficiencies of nutrients.
Use of inorganic fertilizers and single crop farming were depleting the soil of trace minerals and the produce was sumptuous and beautiful looking but lacking in nutrients specially micro nutrients. Processed and refined food was not only deficient in nutrients but also devoid of natural fibers (to increase the shelf life) and full of preservatives refined oils and sugars (hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrups).
Deficiencies of nutrients were reducing the body’s immunity by making it more susceptible to diseases. They also found that the abundance of animal food, which was only available to kings and aristocrats earlier, was now available to the masses and causing havoc with their health. These doctors started to speak out, but their voices were muffled by the powerful lobby of the food, drug and healthcare industries and the government which is eager to please lobbyists with deep pockets. The PBWF movement is the outgrowth of these pioneering voices.
Plant Based Whole Food (PBWF) diet consists of following:
- Only plant based foods. No Animal Products. No fish, eggs or dairy. No butter or ghee. Only honey is acceptable; that also only after one is off medications and in moderation.
- No Refined or highly processed foods. No sugar or vegetable oil.
Processing to the extent that you can do at home with your hands is allowed. So pealing, slicing, dicing, juicing, meshing and cooking is allowed.
In the last 100+ years Food and Drug Industries have become very powerful and are able to influence the Government, Media and the Medical establishment. As a result, the information flowing to us is biased in their favor, and the truth is often hidden from us or distorted. Many views we have today about food and health are a result of that distortion.
Our goal in this group is to understand the true picture .
I will communicate to you what the new thinking is in a certain group of advanced medical doctors who have come to a realization, that greed has taken over common sense in the past century. The belief that when you are sick you should take medicine and the disease will be cured, started with the discovery of antibiotics. At the time, most diseases were infectious diseases and antibiotics worked like a charm. Over the years, we got accustomed to the idea of taking a pill when ill.
As the world wars got over, and we became wealthier as a society and even the poor started eating like kings, the chronic diseases, which only affected the rich earlier, became common. It was natural for us to expect miracle drugs from our doctors and they, along with the pharmaceutical industry were quick to oblige. However, this time, the drugs did not cure the disease, so the doctors came up with the explanation that the lifestyle diseases are not curable and doctors can only help manage them by keeping the symptoms in check through lifelong medications.
Some doctors, who had taken up medical career with a sincere desire to help humanity by curing the diseases, slowly became disenchanted and started looking for answers elsewhere. They observed that just like the wild animals today and our ancestors of 10,000 years ago, human organism is self healing and symptoms are a natural compensatory response of the body. By depressing the symptoms, we are interfering in the body’s self healing mechanism. They further found, that over the years the profit motive of food industry had changed the nature of food to refined and processed food like products that bore little resemblance to food as we knew and were in fact:
(a) Increasing the toxicity of the body and
(b) Creating deficiencies of nutrients.
Use of inorganic fertilizers and single crop farming were depleting the soil of trace minerals and the produce was sumptuous and beautiful looking but lacking in nutrients specially micro nutrients. Processed and refined food was not only deficient in nutrients but also devoid of natural fibers (to increase the shelf life) and full of preservatives refined oils and sugars (hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrups).
Deficiencies of nutrients were reducing the body’s immunity by making it more susceptible to diseases. They also found that the abundance of animal food, which was only available to kings and aristocrats earlier, was now available to the masses and causing havoc with their health. These doctors started to speak out, but their voices were muffled by the powerful lobby of the food, drug and healthcare industries and the government which is eager to please lobbyists with deep pockets. The PBWF movement is the outgrowth of these pioneering voices.
nandha Dynamic
Jan 23, 2022, 8:12:35 AM1/23/22
to nandha
• WHOLE vs Processed •
What one has to consider in reviewing foods is how natural it is and is it whole or refined. Not all Whole Foods are healthy specially if they are highly processed. The idea is to eat least processed food. For example let us talk about corn. The following list summarizes various options available in order of increased processing and refinement.
1. Corn on the cob (least processed)
2. Frozen corn
3. Corn Meal
4.Whole corn flour
5. Corn Starch
6. Popcorn
7. Corn flakes
8. Corn Oil
9, High fructose corn syrup. This is most processed and refined and most harmful.
The last item here is the most unhealthy. This is what get used in most packaged products to sweeten the taste as it is much cheaper than sugar. Most sugary beverages like Coke and Pepsi use HFCS instead of sugar. It is banned in several European countries.
One’s goal should be to eat least processed and refined food. For example if you have on a buffet table corn on the cob (Bhutta) and corn tortillas and corn flakes eat Bhutta. Of course if you do not like Bhutta but love tortillas then have tortillas (since they are very close in the grade). But if you say I love corn flakes, the answer would be NO.
What one has to consider in reviewing foods is how natural it is and is it whole or refined. Not all Whole Foods are healthy specially if they are highly processed. The idea is to eat least processed food. For example let us talk about corn. The following list summarizes various options available in order of increased processing and refinement.
1. Corn on the cob (least processed)
2. Frozen corn
3. Corn Meal
4.Whole corn flour
5. Corn Starch
6. Popcorn
7. Corn flakes
8. Corn Oil
9, High fructose corn syrup. This is most processed and refined and most harmful.
The last item here is the most unhealthy. This is what get used in most packaged products to sweeten the taste as it is much cheaper than sugar. Most sugary beverages like Coke and Pepsi use HFCS instead of sugar. It is banned in several European countries.
One’s goal should be to eat least processed and refined food. For example if you have on a buffet table corn on the cob (Bhutta) and corn tortillas and corn flakes eat Bhutta. Of course if you do not like Bhutta but love tortillas then have tortillas (since they are very close in the grade). But if you say I love corn flakes, the answer would be NO.
•CHANGES: Big & Small•
When changes you make to your diet and lifestyle are significant, the improvements you experience are also significant and you notice them. Not only you, but your friends and family around you also notice them, and pay you compliments.
This has a reinforcing effect on you and you try even harder. This gets you into a positive feedback loop and there is no turning back. You cross over the hump and become self confident.
Remember the words of wisdom. “Nothing Succeeds like Success”. An inflection point comes in life and there is no turning back. PBWF/IF/10K diet and lifestyle is one such habitual change which can help you get to that inflection point. Those who are over weight will find that they are shedding weight without any portion control.
One another motivational source is visualization. After morning shower when you are standing in front of mirror, try to visualize where you want to be. Remember your younger years. It is not difficult to get back there. I did it and I know many others in my health groups have done it. It is actually possible to reverse your physical age. It has been proven and currently lot of research is devoted to that field. I will discuss it later.
Many people are skeptical about what I recommend in such groups. So they only make minor changes. When the changes we make in diet are small, the health benefits are also small and often not noticeable. As a result one looses faith and drops those changes also. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
When changes you make to your diet and lifestyle are significant, the improvements you experience are also significant and you notice them. Not only you, but your friends and family around you also notice them, and pay you compliments.
This has a reinforcing effect on you and you try even harder. This gets you into a positive feedback loop and there is no turning back. You cross over the hump and become self confident.
Remember the words of wisdom. “Nothing Succeeds like Success”. An inflection point comes in life and there is no turning back. PBWF/IF/10K diet and lifestyle is one such habitual change which can help you get to that inflection point. Those who are over weight will find that they are shedding weight without any portion control.
One another motivational source is visualization. After morning shower when you are standing in front of mirror, try to visualize where you want to be. Remember your younger years. It is not difficult to get back there. I did it and I know many others in my health groups have done it. It is actually possible to reverse your physical age. It has been proven and currently lot of research is devoted to that field. I will discuss it later.
Many people are skeptical about what I recommend in such groups. So they only make minor changes. When the changes we make in diet are small, the health benefits are also small and often not noticeable. As a result one looses faith and drops those changes also. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
•• Anecdotal Evidence ••
I recommend all to be very careful when looking at anecdotal evidence and always be sensitive to the issue of causation vs. association. For example George Burns a famous Hollywood actor lived to be 100 and smoked a cigar every day. It would be wrong to conclude that smoking cigars is healthy. May be if he did not smoke cigars he migh have lived to be 110.
I come across many people who say my grandfather had 1/2 liter milk every day and only ate desi ghee and he lived to be 80. This example does not mean any thing. It is possible that if he had green juice instead of milk and ate olives and flaxseeds for fat he might have lived for another 10 years. Our ancestors really did not live a long life. I remember in 1950’s, if some body lived beyond 75-80 his death was celebrated as life well lived. Today I shudder with that thought. 50 years ago people in Blue Zones lived past 90 as a routine and many lived to be 100 - 110.
I recommend all to be very careful when looking at anecdotal evidence and always be sensitive to the issue of causation vs. association. For example George Burns a famous Hollywood actor lived to be 100 and smoked a cigar every day. It would be wrong to conclude that smoking cigars is healthy. May be if he did not smoke cigars he migh have lived to be 110.
I come across many people who say my grandfather had 1/2 liter milk every day and only ate desi ghee and he lived to be 80. This example does not mean any thing. It is possible that if he had green juice instead of milk and ate olives and flaxseeds for fat he might have lived for another 10 years. Our ancestors really did not live a long life. I remember in 1950’s, if some body lived beyond 75-80 his death was celebrated as life well lived. Today I shudder with that thought. 50 years ago people in Blue Zones lived past 90 as a routine and many lived to be 100 - 110.
••• Nutrition Training •••
The curriculum for medical colleges does not include even a single course in nutrition during their 4 year college or internship. There have been many requests by some PBWF doctors to add one course in nutrition but this request has been turned down repeatedly. It makes one wonder why?
My view on this is that the students who enter medical colleges are some of the brightest people and most conscientious also. If they were taught nutrition, they are not only less likely to prescribe as many medications but also advised against animal and processed foods. This would affect the business of Pharma and food industry.
On the other hand we as patients have a tendency to put the doctors on a pedestal, as the ones who knows it all, and we are constantly asking them for advice on what to eat and what to avoid. Many doctors who are my family members or friends, have confided in me that they are at a loss when asked such advice. They simply resort to the general knowledge they have acquired from the media. We will discuss later how the articles in the media get published and influenced. The result is that the doctors also become the propagator of the lies the food industry wants us to believe.
I am posting below a blog by Dr. Jason Fung who is a nephrologist in Toronto and from whom I learned about intermittent fasting years ago before it became mainstream. 👇
Quoting Dr. Jason Fung
“Does your doctor talk about nutrition? My guess is no. My feeling, as a physician, is that most doctors know very little about nutrition. Why not? We are in the midst of a huge paradigm shift in the entire way we look at health and disease. It’s happened so gradually that most doctors are not even aware of it. The physician’s path has been corrupted over the last few decades from ‘The person who keeps you healthy’ to ‘The person who gives you drugs and surgery’. Let me explain.
A physician’s job has always been to heal the sick and give advice on how to stay healthy. There were medical treatments, to be sure – leeching, purging, and my personal favorite – eating ground up powdered mummies. Yes. You read that correctly. For thousands of years, eating the ground up mummified remains of long-dead embalmed human beings was considered good medicine. That’s what they taught at them ancient medical schools. The demand for powdered mummies was so great that sometimes hucksters would simply grind up dead beggars and plague victims and sell them as mummies.
The history of medicine is the history of the placebo effect. This mummy-eating practice died out in the 16th century was was replaced by other equally useless procedures – such as the lobotomy to cure mental illness. Hey, let me shove this ice pick through your eyeball and mash up parts of your brain like I’m mashing a potato. The inventor of this procedure received the 1949 Nobel Prize for Medicine. This was the cutting edge of medicine circa 1949. Any criticism of this mashed-brain strategy could be legitimately met by “Did YOU win a Nobel Prize, buddy?”
The paradigm of medicine as a semi-useless and semi-horrifying profession began to shift with the development of antibiotics – starting with penicillin in 1928. Now, all of a sudden, we had an effective treatment for infectious disease, which had been the major medical problem of the 20th century. Doctors, for virtually the first time ever, had something reasonably useful to fight illness. Doctors had something better to offer than mummy extract or shoving sharp metal pointy things in through the eyeball. Yaaayyy!
Similarly, with the advent of modern anesthesia and surgical techniques, we had effective treatments for diseases like ruptured appendices and gallstones and so on. Prior to that, surgery was a grisly sight. There were no effective antibiotics, there was no effective anesthesia, and post operative complications were many. It was really just some guy with a saw, ready to cut your leg off, giving you a rope to bite down on so you didn’t scream. You were just as likely to die of the surgery as of the disease.
The curriculum for medical colleges does not include even a single course in nutrition during their 4 year college or internship. There have been many requests by some PBWF doctors to add one course in nutrition but this request has been turned down repeatedly. It makes one wonder why?
My view on this is that the students who enter medical colleges are some of the brightest people and most conscientious also. If they were taught nutrition, they are not only less likely to prescribe as many medications but also advised against animal and processed foods. This would affect the business of Pharma and food industry.
On the other hand we as patients have a tendency to put the doctors on a pedestal, as the ones who knows it all, and we are constantly asking them for advice on what to eat and what to avoid. Many doctors who are my family members or friends, have confided in me that they are at a loss when asked such advice. They simply resort to the general knowledge they have acquired from the media. We will discuss later how the articles in the media get published and influenced. The result is that the doctors also become the propagator of the lies the food industry wants us to believe.
I am posting below a blog by Dr. Jason Fung who is a nephrologist in Toronto and from whom I learned about intermittent fasting years ago before it became mainstream. 👇
Quoting Dr. Jason Fung
“Does your doctor talk about nutrition? My guess is no. My feeling, as a physician, is that most doctors know very little about nutrition. Why not? We are in the midst of a huge paradigm shift in the entire way we look at health and disease. It’s happened so gradually that most doctors are not even aware of it. The physician’s path has been corrupted over the last few decades from ‘The person who keeps you healthy’ to ‘The person who gives you drugs and surgery’. Let me explain.
A physician’s job has always been to heal the sick and give advice on how to stay healthy. There were medical treatments, to be sure – leeching, purging, and my personal favorite – eating ground up powdered mummies. Yes. You read that correctly. For thousands of years, eating the ground up mummified remains of long-dead embalmed human beings was considered good medicine. That’s what they taught at them ancient medical schools. The demand for powdered mummies was so great that sometimes hucksters would simply grind up dead beggars and plague victims and sell them as mummies.
The history of medicine is the history of the placebo effect. This mummy-eating practice died out in the 16th century was was replaced by other equally useless procedures – such as the lobotomy to cure mental illness. Hey, let me shove this ice pick through your eyeball and mash up parts of your brain like I’m mashing a potato. The inventor of this procedure received the 1949 Nobel Prize for Medicine. This was the cutting edge of medicine circa 1949. Any criticism of this mashed-brain strategy could be legitimately met by “Did YOU win a Nobel Prize, buddy?”
The paradigm of medicine as a semi-useless and semi-horrifying profession began to shift with the development of antibiotics – starting with penicillin in 1928. Now, all of a sudden, we had an effective treatment for infectious disease, which had been the major medical problem of the 20th century. Doctors, for virtually the first time ever, had something reasonably useful to fight illness. Doctors had something better to offer than mummy extract or shoving sharp metal pointy things in through the eyeball. Yaaayyy!
Similarly, with the advent of modern anesthesia and surgical techniques, we had effective treatments for diseases like ruptured appendices and gallstones and so on. Prior to that, surgery was a grisly sight. There were no effective antibiotics, there was no effective anesthesia, and post operative complications were many. It was really just some guy with a saw, ready to cut your leg off, giving you a rope to bite down on so you didn’t scream. You were just as likely to die of the surgery as of the disease.
Surgery was the last option, because the treatment was just as lethal as the disease. You went into the barber shop to see the guy with the rusty scalpel he just picked up off the filthy bloodstained tray. Many times, you never came back out.
By the middle of the 20th century, this all changed. The concepts of germs and the importance of antiseptics were discovered. Anesthetic agents were discovered. Penicillin and other miraculous antibiotics were discovered. Public hygiene and sanitation were improved. So, the doctor patient relationship changed. Now, physicians saw ourselves as the fix-it guy or fix-it girl.You have a disease, I give you a pill. You get better. Or – you have a disease, I give you surgery. You get better.
This worked really well from the 1940s to the 1980s. Most of the major health issues were infectious diseases. From bacterial pneumonia, to bacteria like H. Pylori, to viruses like HIV, to Hepatitis C – people were getting better. You can see this clearly in the life expectancy of people 65 years and older (this removes the effect of child mortality and wars etc., concentrating on chronic disease).
During this time, medical school training reflected this new role that physicians saw themselves. We wanted to know about drugs, and surgery, and more drugs and more surgery. Obesity, a dietary disease should be treated with, I know, drugs! If that doesn’t work, then, I know, surgery! To the doctor with a hammer, all problems are nails.
Nutrition training is virtually non existent in medical school. During residency (the 5 years of training after medical school) it was completely non existent. We didn’t learn about it, so we didn’t care about it and we didn’t care to learn about it. Nutrition was just not part of the vocabulary. Being a doctor meant “I don’t care about nutrition” because that’s what the medical school taught me (and everybody else in my medical school class) – not overtly, mind you, but we were the fix-it guys and girls. The drugs and surgery gang. Not the nutritionists. Which was fine, as long as the major health problems were infections and surgical problems.
Things changed by the end of the 20th century. The big problems were no longer infectious diseases. Starting in the late 1970s we had a massive obesity epidemic. Then 10 years later, a massive diabetes epidemic. Our drugs and surgery tools were completely inadequate to deal with this new reality. We tried to apply the 20th century attitude to the new 21st century medical problems, which are largely obesity related and metabolic in nature. We tried – You have type 2 diabetes, let me give you a pill (or insulin). It was a dismal failure. We tried – You have obesity, let me give you surgery. It works, kind of. But there are a lot of complications.
So, we, as doctors, were lost. We were reduced to giving simple, puerile, and utterly ineffective advice like “Eat Less, Move More”, or “Count your calories” or “It’s all about the Calories”. We lacked comprehension of the problem. We didn’t understand obesity and its hormonal nature, and we didn’t know how to treat it. So, most of us gave up. We admitted defeat by trying to pretend that type 2 diabetes is a chronic and progressive disease. We pretended that obesity is a natural consequence of aging even though it had never happened on this scale in human history. Both statements, of course, are completely false. Losing weight often reversed type 2 diabetes, so we told people to lose weight, but we didn’t tell them how to lose weight.
Without any training, we gave the only advice we knew – Eat Less, Move more. This is rather ironic, considering that all available evidence from our studies shows that restricting calories is a completely ineffective method of weight control (see article – The Lack of Evidence for Caloric Restriction). We introduced non-physiologic concepts from physics like calories to try to explain weight loss (see article – The Useless Concept of Calories). We knew that about 99% of the time, this Caloric Reduction as Primary strategy failed, but we didn’t care.
By the middle of the 20th century, this all changed. The concepts of germs and the importance of antiseptics were discovered. Anesthetic agents were discovered. Penicillin and other miraculous antibiotics were discovered. Public hygiene and sanitation were improved. So, the doctor patient relationship changed. Now, physicians saw ourselves as the fix-it guy or fix-it girl.You have a disease, I give you a pill. You get better. Or – you have a disease, I give you surgery. You get better.
This worked really well from the 1940s to the 1980s. Most of the major health issues were infectious diseases. From bacterial pneumonia, to bacteria like H. Pylori, to viruses like HIV, to Hepatitis C – people were getting better. You can see this clearly in the life expectancy of people 65 years and older (this removes the effect of child mortality and wars etc., concentrating on chronic disease).
During this time, medical school training reflected this new role that physicians saw themselves. We wanted to know about drugs, and surgery, and more drugs and more surgery. Obesity, a dietary disease should be treated with, I know, drugs! If that doesn’t work, then, I know, surgery! To the doctor with a hammer, all problems are nails.
Nutrition training is virtually non existent in medical school. During residency (the 5 years of training after medical school) it was completely non existent. We didn’t learn about it, so we didn’t care about it and we didn’t care to learn about it. Nutrition was just not part of the vocabulary. Being a doctor meant “I don’t care about nutrition” because that’s what the medical school taught me (and everybody else in my medical school class) – not overtly, mind you, but we were the fix-it guys and girls. The drugs and surgery gang. Not the nutritionists. Which was fine, as long as the major health problems were infections and surgical problems.
Things changed by the end of the 20th century. The big problems were no longer infectious diseases. Starting in the late 1970s we had a massive obesity epidemic. Then 10 years later, a massive diabetes epidemic. Our drugs and surgery tools were completely inadequate to deal with this new reality. We tried to apply the 20th century attitude to the new 21st century medical problems, which are largely obesity related and metabolic in nature. We tried – You have type 2 diabetes, let me give you a pill (or insulin). It was a dismal failure. We tried – You have obesity, let me give you surgery. It works, kind of. But there are a lot of complications.
So, we, as doctors, were lost. We were reduced to giving simple, puerile, and utterly ineffective advice like “Eat Less, Move More”, or “Count your calories” or “It’s all about the Calories”. We lacked comprehension of the problem. We didn’t understand obesity and its hormonal nature, and we didn’t know how to treat it. So, most of us gave up. We admitted defeat by trying to pretend that type 2 diabetes is a chronic and progressive disease. We pretended that obesity is a natural consequence of aging even though it had never happened on this scale in human history. Both statements, of course, are completely false. Losing weight often reversed type 2 diabetes, so we told people to lose weight, but we didn’t tell them how to lose weight.
Without any training, we gave the only advice we knew – Eat Less, Move more. This is rather ironic, considering that all available evidence from our studies shows that restricting calories is a completely ineffective method of weight control (see article – The Lack of Evidence for Caloric Restriction). We introduced non-physiologic concepts from physics like calories to try to explain weight loss (see article – The Useless Concept of Calories). We knew that about 99% of the time, this Caloric Reduction as Primary strategy failed, but we didn’t care.
It was the best we had, so that’s what we gave.
But there is hope. More and more doctors are starting to recognize that the related conditions of the metabolic syndrome which are all closely related to obesity are treatable, not druggable conditions. This includes obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. You can’t treat a dietary disease with drugs. So the weapon of choice for metabolic problems of the 21st century is not a new drug or a new type of surgery, although there are many who try to medicalize a dietary problem. No, the best option is to treat the root cause. Treat the dietary disease with correction of the underlying diet.
The weapon of choice in 21st century medicine will be information. Information far beyond the simplistic notions of calories. Information about the ancient practice of fasting. Information about reducing refined foods especially carbohydrates. Information about the hormonal basis of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
And the great news is that this information is not limited to doctors, but can be found by anybody with an internet connection. That is precisely the point of this blog, its related books and related podcast – detailed discussion about the science of obesity, the science of nutrition, the science of type 2 diabetes. That is precisely the point of our online Intensive Dietary Management program. Nutrition as a therapeutic option for nutritional diseases. That is the future of medicine.”
☝️Dr. Jason Fung has been treating his diabetes patients with intermittent fasting. He is not a PBWF practitioner and recommends keto diet which is quite unhealthy in the long run and opposed by all PBWF doctors. I agree with his IF pitch but not Keto pitch.
But there is hope. More and more doctors are starting to recognize that the related conditions of the metabolic syndrome which are all closely related to obesity are treatable, not druggable conditions. This includes obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. You can’t treat a dietary disease with drugs. So the weapon of choice for metabolic problems of the 21st century is not a new drug or a new type of surgery, although there are many who try to medicalize a dietary problem. No, the best option is to treat the root cause. Treat the dietary disease with correction of the underlying diet.
The weapon of choice in 21st century medicine will be information. Information far beyond the simplistic notions of calories. Information about the ancient practice of fasting. Information about reducing refined foods especially carbohydrates. Information about the hormonal basis of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
And the great news is that this information is not limited to doctors, but can be found by anybody with an internet connection. That is precisely the point of this blog, its related books and related podcast – detailed discussion about the science of obesity, the science of nutrition, the science of type 2 diabetes. That is precisely the point of our online Intensive Dietary Management program. Nutrition as a therapeutic option for nutritional diseases. That is the future of medicine.”
☝️Dr. Jason Fung has been treating his diabetes patients with intermittent fasting. He is not a PBWF practitioner and recommends keto diet which is quite unhealthy in the long run and opposed by all PBWF doctors. I agree with his IF pitch but not Keto pitch.
nandha Dynamic
Jan 23, 2022, 8:16:32 AM1/23/22
to nandha
••HUMAN EVOLUTION••
There are three observations to be made about our human history.
1. Human beings have been in existence for over 2 million years and have evolved over many more millions of years. Initially, our ancestors lived primarily on trees eating fruits and roots. As the climate changed and trees thinned out, our ancestors couldn’t just jump from tree to tree and had to start walking a few steps to get to the next tree. As the trees moved further apart, walking had to become more efficient and they started moving on hind legs. The grains growing on wild grasses, became part of our ancestors diet. Also, meat left over by carnivorous animals became part of the diet. We thus evolved to become gatherers and scavengers and small game hunters. It was much later, as our tools evolved and became more powerful, were we able to kill large animals.
As a result, our diet primarily consisted of wild plant based food with very small portions of animal food. The fossilized poop analysis has shown that the animal food comprised less than 5% of the Paleo diet. It was only 10,000 years ago that we settled down and domesticated animals.
2. All animals living in the wild, even today, do not require any veterinarian visits or medications. The food they eat is in natural form and unprocessed. Their main concern is finding food and the fear of the predators. Most sicknesses among them are either food related or attacks by insects and leaches. When they get sick, they usually stop eating for a few days or modify their diet by looking for some special plant or food.
3. Throughout the bulk of human history, like all wild animals, our body was self healing without any need for inorganic medicines or visits to doctors and hospitals. When we were indisposed our body told us what to do and it mostly involved:
- Resting
- Fasting
- Changing food
- Nature cures like messages
Even in the last two thousand years, doctors advised us “Let the food be Thy medicine”.
Most people tried kitchen herbal remedies and fasting. When we visited a doctor (Vaid, Hakim or a nature path) his focus was on analyzing our diet, poop, urine, and physical symptoms. His prescription of medicine included some herbal concoction and instructions to avoid certain foods, while taking that concoction.(In Hindi it was called Perhej). Some times they also prescribed that the medicine should always be consumed with a cup of some food or a glass of some juice. We would never know whether the medicine did the trick or the avoidance of certain foods or inclusion of some foods or juice or just the placebo, but it worked most of the time. Probably all four played some role.
Plant Based Whole Food (PBWF) (also called by some Whole Food Plant Based) Doctors believe that root cause of all chronic illnesses today is the food we eat and the lifestyle we lead and when we change that, all chronic illnesses disappear.
Our body has evolved, to self heal and when we interfere with that healing process by taking medications to suppress symptoms (which were part of the compensating mechanism) additional complications arise requiring more medications and the dependence on medications keeps on increasing. This puts us in a vicious circle, the end of which is organ failure and death.
There are three observations to be made about our human history.
1. Human beings have been in existence for over 2 million years and have evolved over many more millions of years. Initially, our ancestors lived primarily on trees eating fruits and roots. As the climate changed and trees thinned out, our ancestors couldn’t just jump from tree to tree and had to start walking a few steps to get to the next tree. As the trees moved further apart, walking had to become more efficient and they started moving on hind legs. The grains growing on wild grasses, became part of our ancestors diet. Also, meat left over by carnivorous animals became part of the diet. We thus evolved to become gatherers and scavengers and small game hunters. It was much later, as our tools evolved and became more powerful, were we able to kill large animals.
As a result, our diet primarily consisted of wild plant based food with very small portions of animal food. The fossilized poop analysis has shown that the animal food comprised less than 5% of the Paleo diet. It was only 10,000 years ago that we settled down and domesticated animals.
2. All animals living in the wild, even today, do not require any veterinarian visits or medications. The food they eat is in natural form and unprocessed. Their main concern is finding food and the fear of the predators. Most sicknesses among them are either food related or attacks by insects and leaches. When they get sick, they usually stop eating for a few days or modify their diet by looking for some special plant or food.
3. Throughout the bulk of human history, like all wild animals, our body was self healing without any need for inorganic medicines or visits to doctors and hospitals. When we were indisposed our body told us what to do and it mostly involved:
- Resting
- Fasting
- Changing food
- Nature cures like messages
Even in the last two thousand years, doctors advised us “Let the food be Thy medicine”.
Most people tried kitchen herbal remedies and fasting. When we visited a doctor (Vaid, Hakim or a nature path) his focus was on analyzing our diet, poop, urine, and physical symptoms. His prescription of medicine included some herbal concoction and instructions to avoid certain foods, while taking that concoction.(In Hindi it was called Perhej). Some times they also prescribed that the medicine should always be consumed with a cup of some food or a glass of some juice. We would never know whether the medicine did the trick or the avoidance of certain foods or inclusion of some foods or juice or just the placebo, but it worked most of the time. Probably all four played some role.
Plant Based Whole Food (PBWF) (also called by some Whole Food Plant Based) Doctors believe that root cause of all chronic illnesses today is the food we eat and the lifestyle we lead and when we change that, all chronic illnesses disappear.
Our body has evolved, to self heal and when we interfere with that healing process by taking medications to suppress symptoms (which were part of the compensating mechanism) additional complications arise requiring more medications and the dependence on medications keeps on increasing. This puts us in a vicious circle, the end of which is organ failure and death.
•• Five Pillars of Health ••
There are several factors that determine our health. I call them the five pillars of health. These are:
1. Food
2. Detoxification
3. Circadian Rhythm
4. Physical Activity
5. Emotional & Spiritual Health
Out of these food (including absence of it, as in fasting), accounts for two third of the health and the rest of the remaining factors account for the remaining one third. This may come as surprise to many because social media is full of articles and talks which suggest other factors like physical exercise or yoga & meditation as most important. There are many such myths. Food provides us nutrition and energy and I will initially focus on food.
There are several factors that determine our health. I call them the five pillars of health. These are:
1. Food
2. Detoxification
3. Circadian Rhythm
4. Physical Activity
5. Emotional & Spiritual Health
Out of these food (including absence of it, as in fasting), accounts for two third of the health and the rest of the remaining factors account for the remaining one third. This may come as surprise to many because social media is full of articles and talks which suggest other factors like physical exercise or yoga & meditation as most important. There are many such myths. Food provides us nutrition and energy and I will initially focus on food.
•••••• F O O D ••••••
The first and the most important pillar of health is food. Plant Based Whole Food doctors believe that food accounts for 80% of our health. I split this into two separate pillars; food and detoxification.
Human body is made up of over 30 trillion cells. Cells are the fundamental building blocks of all organisms. A cell consists of a cell membrane, nucleus and the rest of the stuff inside called cytoplasm. The cell membrane which is made of cholesterol, separates the cytoplasm and nucleus from its external environment. The external environment contains the nutrients that the circulating blood provides every second. Our heart beats once each second bringing fresh nutrients to every cell. After nutrients penetrate the cell membrane, they are metabolized and turned into energy that fuels the cell’s life functions. The by-products of this metabolic activity are waste that needs to be removed from the cell through the same cell membrane. Any impairment to a cells ability to let nutrients in or let the waste out leads to cell death by starvation or toxicity. This concept in Yoga is called Prana and Apana.
For good health it is important that each cell receives the nutrients it needs, avoids any toxins, and removes the waste.
This requires consuming the food that has necessary nutrients and avoids any toxins.
Before we discuss food it is important to understand some common myths about food which may have their roots in cultural traditions or financial motivations of the Food and Pharma industries.
The first and the most important pillar of health is food. Plant Based Whole Food doctors believe that food accounts for 80% of our health. I split this into two separate pillars; food and detoxification.
Human body is made up of over 30 trillion cells. Cells are the fundamental building blocks of all organisms. A cell consists of a cell membrane, nucleus and the rest of the stuff inside called cytoplasm. The cell membrane which is made of cholesterol, separates the cytoplasm and nucleus from its external environment. The external environment contains the nutrients that the circulating blood provides every second. Our heart beats once each second bringing fresh nutrients to every cell. After nutrients penetrate the cell membrane, they are metabolized and turned into energy that fuels the cell’s life functions. The by-products of this metabolic activity are waste that needs to be removed from the cell through the same cell membrane. Any impairment to a cells ability to let nutrients in or let the waste out leads to cell death by starvation or toxicity. This concept in Yoga is called Prana and Apana.
For good health it is important that each cell receives the nutrients it needs, avoids any toxins, and removes the waste.
This requires consuming the food that has necessary nutrients and avoids any toxins.
Before we discuss food it is important to understand some common myths about food which may have their roots in cultural traditions or financial motivations of the Food and Pharma industries.
• Diet & Lifestyle Myths •
As we grow from a 2 year old child who has just been weaned, we are exposed to foods that our parents and/or grand parents thought was healthy. The information they inherited from their parents or acquired through education or through media or through interactions with their doctors. The doctors in their education learn a lot about diseases and medicines but are not taught much about nutrition. In US, medical college provides less than few hours of lectures on the subject of nutrition. The result is often blind leading a blind.
There are many myths about nutrition and there are lot of vested interests in propagating these myths.
Some common myths about food are :
1. Everything in moderation is good: No, when you do that you get disease also in moderation and we blame it on old age. Diseases we associate with old age have little to do with old age and more to do with our faulty diet and lifestyle.
2. You can wait to change your diet: No, one must implement the corrective changes in diet and lifestyle without delay. Diseases do progress to a point of no return if delayed too long.
3. Exercise can make up for unhealthy diet: No, this is a very common myth among young people who go to gym. About half the people who die of first heart attack have normal blood chemistry and no symptoms.
4. A little bit can’t hurt: No some toxins are cumulative and can hurt in the long turn. Exposure to radiation is one of those. Heavy metal poisoning is also like that.
5. If a little is good, more is better: No many minerals should only be consumed in smaller quantities. There is interference among minerals snd one needs to be cautious. This is why supplements are discouraged. This is also how people start consuming too much protein.
6. One should eat more protein; protein builds muscles: No, this is one of the most common myth Protein does not build muscles; muscles are built by putting them through stress exercises. Muscles used stay in shape. If you don’t use them you lose them.
7. Carbs are fattening; low carb diets are healthy: No, carbs are the most important part of diet and need to be the largest component of your diet (60-80 percent). They should be consumed in complex form which is natural unrefined form.
8. Carbs raise insulin level while protein lowers it: No, this is true for refined carbs: No, unrefined carbs are complex carbs where sugar is embedded in the fibers and it is released slowly.
9. Cow’s Milk is the best source of Calcium: No, cow’s milk causes acidosis which requires bleaching calcium out of the bones to neutralize the acidity. Countries with most dairy consumption have highest hip fracture rates.
10. Calcium is what makes your bones strong: No, bones become strong when exposed to stress. Calcium is brittle and weak like a chalk stick used to write on blackboards.
11. You need to eat meat for iron: No, green leafy vegetables are the best source of iron. Meat has many problems.
12. Chicken is healthier than Beef or mutton meat: No, they all are equally bad. Poultry farm chicken are injected with brine making them worse than other meats.
13. Fish have good fat. Fish or fish oil is your best source for Omega-3: it is true that fresh water fish is rich in Omega3 but Flaxseeds, Chiaseeds , Hempseeds, walnuts and mustard seeds are also great source of Omega3 and have no negative issues. Fish Oil fraud has been exposed.
14. Grilling Animal food makes them healthy:
It only removes some fat other problems remain. Also browning meat and chicken is carcinogenic.
15. A glass of Red Wine is good for you: No, it is only less harmful that white wine or other alcohol drinks. Avoiding all alcohol is the safest.
16. Artificial sweeteners are good for diabetics and overweight people: No, they cause weight gain.
17. We should dissect our food into protein, fat, carbs, vitamins and minerals and monitor their consumption: No, handling nutrition in reductionist fashion is flawed. One should think in terms of Whole Foods as nutrition.
As we grow from a 2 year old child who has just been weaned, we are exposed to foods that our parents and/or grand parents thought was healthy. The information they inherited from their parents or acquired through education or through media or through interactions with their doctors. The doctors in their education learn a lot about diseases and medicines but are not taught much about nutrition. In US, medical college provides less than few hours of lectures on the subject of nutrition. The result is often blind leading a blind.
There are many myths about nutrition and there are lot of vested interests in propagating these myths.
Some common myths about food are :
1. Everything in moderation is good: No, when you do that you get disease also in moderation and we blame it on old age. Diseases we associate with old age have little to do with old age and more to do with our faulty diet and lifestyle.
2. You can wait to change your diet: No, one must implement the corrective changes in diet and lifestyle without delay. Diseases do progress to a point of no return if delayed too long.
3. Exercise can make up for unhealthy diet: No, this is a very common myth among young people who go to gym. About half the people who die of first heart attack have normal blood chemistry and no symptoms.
4. A little bit can’t hurt: No some toxins are cumulative and can hurt in the long turn. Exposure to radiation is one of those. Heavy metal poisoning is also like that.
5. If a little is good, more is better: No many minerals should only be consumed in smaller quantities. There is interference among minerals snd one needs to be cautious. This is why supplements are discouraged. This is also how people start consuming too much protein.
6. One should eat more protein; protein builds muscles: No, this is one of the most common myth Protein does not build muscles; muscles are built by putting them through stress exercises. Muscles used stay in shape. If you don’t use them you lose them.
7. Carbs are fattening; low carb diets are healthy: No, carbs are the most important part of diet and need to be the largest component of your diet (60-80 percent). They should be consumed in complex form which is natural unrefined form.
8. Carbs raise insulin level while protein lowers it: No, this is true for refined carbs: No, unrefined carbs are complex carbs where sugar is embedded in the fibers and it is released slowly.
9. Cow’s Milk is the best source of Calcium: No, cow’s milk causes acidosis which requires bleaching calcium out of the bones to neutralize the acidity. Countries with most dairy consumption have highest hip fracture rates.
10. Calcium is what makes your bones strong: No, bones become strong when exposed to stress. Calcium is brittle and weak like a chalk stick used to write on blackboards.
11. You need to eat meat for iron: No, green leafy vegetables are the best source of iron. Meat has many problems.
12. Chicken is healthier than Beef or mutton meat: No, they all are equally bad. Poultry farm chicken are injected with brine making them worse than other meats.
13. Fish have good fat. Fish or fish oil is your best source for Omega-3: it is true that fresh water fish is rich in Omega3 but Flaxseeds, Chiaseeds , Hempseeds, walnuts and mustard seeds are also great source of Omega3 and have no negative issues. Fish Oil fraud has been exposed.
14. Grilling Animal food makes them healthy:
It only removes some fat other problems remain. Also browning meat and chicken is carcinogenic.
15. A glass of Red Wine is good for you: No, it is only less harmful that white wine or other alcohol drinks. Avoiding all alcohol is the safest.
16. Artificial sweeteners are good for diabetics and overweight people: No, they cause weight gain.
17. We should dissect our food into protein, fat, carbs, vitamins and minerals and monitor their consumption: No, handling nutrition in reductionist fashion is flawed. One should think in terms of Whole Foods as nutrition.
nandha Dynamic
Jan 23, 2022, 8:19:15 AM1/23/22
to nandha
••• PROTEIN MYTH •••
There are only three macronutrients that provide energy (calories) to sustain life;
protein, fat and carbohydrates. Of these only protein has nitrogen; rest are only carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. (Water (H2O) provides hydrogen and oxygen to plants, air provides oxygen and nitrogen and soil provides the minerals. Carbon dioxide that we breathe out is absorbed by the plants during day light and converted into hydro carbons).
Fats and carbohydrates (carbs) are easily convertible into each other and can be stored in the body. Body’s storage capacity for carbs is only 500 +/- grams. It is stored in muscles and liver as glycogen. Rest of the energy storage is in the form of fat; mostly under our skin (subcutaneous fat) and some times adjacent to our internal organs (visceral fat). There is no storage provision for protein in our body. When we eat more protein than needed, which most of us in the civilized world do, (thanks to the myths propagated by the food industry and the ignorant doctors) our body faces a problem. What to do with that extra protein? So the liver which is the chemical factory in our body, removes the nitrogen from the protein and makes ammonia (NH3). Ammonia is toxic and needs to be gotten rid off ASAP from the body. So the body combines it with water and converts it to uric acid and kidney filters it out as urine.
This taxes two of our critical organs; kidney and liver. This is a leading cause for kidney and liver diseases at later stages in life in the civilized World.
When there is excess of uric acid, it crystallizes and the body tries to move it as far away as possible from the heart. The farthest point is our big toe and the uric acid crystals are deposited there. This condition is called gout. Many French paintings from the renaissance period show over weight royalties suffering from this pain.
As a society our protein consumption (from meat eggs and dairy) has increased multi fold over the past century. This has led to many diseases like Hypertension, Diabetes, Heart diseases, Strokes, Dementia, Kidney and Liver diseases.
Protein as a nutrient was first discovered in 1838. That plants also have protein was learnt only by the end of the 19th century. As a result there has been a bias for animal protein.
Of the various food myths discussed earlier, the one I want to further elaborate on, is misconceptions about protein.
In the 1950’s, my grandfather insisted I take a glass of milk every morning and night. In the morning he would add one egg yolk to my milk (not to mention the sugar which was always added to milk in India in those days). While I hated drinking it, I had no choice in the matter. Little did he know, that he was causing me harm. He had the best of intentions and based on the prevalent wisdom, at the time, he was doing the right thing.
Most people know about a project called the “Human Genome Project” which was undertaken during 1990 to 2003 to map genes in the human body. Few people however are aware of “Human Proteome Project” that was undertaken, few years later, to study all the proteins in human body. The science emerging from this ongoing project is called Proteomics. For reasons unknown to me, the finding of the Proteomics project are not picked up by the mass media or social media. I believe it may have something to do with its potential impact on the food industry, especially meat, poultry and dairy consumption.
The human body of a grown up individual makes about 200 grams of new proteins every day and also breaks down about the same amount daily due to wear and tear. The body is very efficient in recycling this protein back into amino acids to make new proteins. Some proteins cannot be recycled such as nails, hair dead skin etc. . New research has shown that about 85% of these proteins get recycled by the body, leaving only a shortfall of 30 grams that we need to consume daily.
In 1947 the US Government established the minimum protein requirements for an adult at 5-6% of our daily caloric intake (25-30gm).
There are only three macronutrients that provide energy (calories) to sustain life;
protein, fat and carbohydrates. Of these only protein has nitrogen; rest are only carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. (Water (H2O) provides hydrogen and oxygen to plants, air provides oxygen and nitrogen and soil provides the minerals. Carbon dioxide that we breathe out is absorbed by the plants during day light and converted into hydro carbons).
Fats and carbohydrates (carbs) are easily convertible into each other and can be stored in the body. Body’s storage capacity for carbs is only 500 +/- grams. It is stored in muscles and liver as glycogen. Rest of the energy storage is in the form of fat; mostly under our skin (subcutaneous fat) and some times adjacent to our internal organs (visceral fat). There is no storage provision for protein in our body. When we eat more protein than needed, which most of us in the civilized world do, (thanks to the myths propagated by the food industry and the ignorant doctors) our body faces a problem. What to do with that extra protein? So the liver which is the chemical factory in our body, removes the nitrogen from the protein and makes ammonia (NH3). Ammonia is toxic and needs to be gotten rid off ASAP from the body. So the body combines it with water and converts it to uric acid and kidney filters it out as urine.
This taxes two of our critical organs; kidney and liver. This is a leading cause for kidney and liver diseases at later stages in life in the civilized World.
When there is excess of uric acid, it crystallizes and the body tries to move it as far away as possible from the heart. The farthest point is our big toe and the uric acid crystals are deposited there. This condition is called gout. Many French paintings from the renaissance period show over weight royalties suffering from this pain.
As a society our protein consumption (from meat eggs and dairy) has increased multi fold over the past century. This has led to many diseases like Hypertension, Diabetes, Heart diseases, Strokes, Dementia, Kidney and Liver diseases.
Protein as a nutrient was first discovered in 1838. That plants also have protein was learnt only by the end of the 19th century. As a result there has been a bias for animal protein.
Of the various food myths discussed earlier, the one I want to further elaborate on, is misconceptions about protein.
In the 1950’s, my grandfather insisted I take a glass of milk every morning and night. In the morning he would add one egg yolk to my milk (not to mention the sugar which was always added to milk in India in those days). While I hated drinking it, I had no choice in the matter. Little did he know, that he was causing me harm. He had the best of intentions and based on the prevalent wisdom, at the time, he was doing the right thing.
Most people know about a project called the “Human Genome Project” which was undertaken during 1990 to 2003 to map genes in the human body. Few people however are aware of “Human Proteome Project” that was undertaken, few years later, to study all the proteins in human body. The science emerging from this ongoing project is called Proteomics. For reasons unknown to me, the finding of the Proteomics project are not picked up by the mass media or social media. I believe it may have something to do with its potential impact on the food industry, especially meat, poultry and dairy consumption.
The human body of a grown up individual makes about 200 grams of new proteins every day and also breaks down about the same amount daily due to wear and tear. The body is very efficient in recycling this protein back into amino acids to make new proteins. Some proteins cannot be recycled such as nails, hair dead skin etc. . New research has shown that about 85% of these proteins get recycled by the body, leaving only a shortfall of 30 grams that we need to consume daily.
In 1947 the US Government established the minimum protein requirements for an adult at 5-6% of our daily caloric intake (25-30gm).
However, they established the recommended daily allowance at 8-10% amounting to 40-50 grams. The bias for higher protein consumption was so pervasive at the time that even the government felt the need to recommend almost twice the minimum level. This was due to popular beliefs that physical labor and gym enthusiasts need more protein from higher wear and tear on the body, so to cover a broad spectrum of population a figure of 8-10 percent was arrived at.
The food industry in its zeal to sell more food, distorted these minimum and recommended guidelines and some how, the recommended daily amount was labeled as the minimum.
A google search on “protein” will reveal that these distortions appear even on prestigious web sites such as Healthline, WebMD and Harvard Health Blog which I quote below:
“The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is a modest 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. The RDA is the amount of a nutrient you need to meet your basic nutritional requirements. In a sense, it’s the minimum amount you need to keep from getting sick — not the specific amount you are supposed to eat every day.”
The above statement is a total lie. It may surprise you to note that there is not a single recorded case of protein deficiency in the Civilized World. 97% of all Americans eat too much protein while at the same time 97% of all Americans are deficient in dietary fiber in their diets.
The nutrient of concern therefore should be fiber and not protein. Sadly press coverages on dangers of excessive protein consumption do not exist and the topic is conveniently ignored by the mass media. This is in spite of doctors such as Dr. Collin Campbell and Dr.Janice Stanger speaking about it at conferences, in various documentaries and on YouTube videos.
Contrary to this pervasive obsession with high protein, the Nobel Prizes for 2016 and 2018 point out that occasional periods of protein deficiency detoxes our body and helps build immunity by a process called autophagy.
Dr. Honzo (2018 Nobel Laureate) has demonstrated that prolonged fasting or feeding cancer patients diet devoid in protein for stretches of 5-10 days can help build immunity to fight cancer.
Protein is so abundant in nature that almost all plant based foods have it. Potatoes have 5-6 percent, rice has 7-8 percent, watermelon has 7 percent. The importance of this lesson is this:
“One should just stop worrying about protein while on pbwf diet and focus on fiber instead.”
Another misconception about protein is that eating protein builds muscles. Muscles develop when you exercise them. The famous gladiators of the Roman period 2,000 years ago, who had to fight for life every day, were all vegans. Please watch the documentary “The Game Changers”. This is also discussed in the documentary “Forks over Knives”.
Please watch the talk about dangers of excessive protein in the following video by Dr. Janice Stanger who is a Professor at the University of California, SanFrancisco (UCSF).
The food industry in its zeal to sell more food, distorted these minimum and recommended guidelines and some how, the recommended daily amount was labeled as the minimum.
A google search on “protein” will reveal that these distortions appear even on prestigious web sites such as Healthline, WebMD and Harvard Health Blog which I quote below:
“The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is a modest 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. The RDA is the amount of a nutrient you need to meet your basic nutritional requirements. In a sense, it’s the minimum amount you need to keep from getting sick — not the specific amount you are supposed to eat every day.”
The above statement is a total lie. It may surprise you to note that there is not a single recorded case of protein deficiency in the Civilized World. 97% of all Americans eat too much protein while at the same time 97% of all Americans are deficient in dietary fiber in their diets.
The nutrient of concern therefore should be fiber and not protein. Sadly press coverages on dangers of excessive protein consumption do not exist and the topic is conveniently ignored by the mass media. This is in spite of doctors such as Dr. Collin Campbell and Dr.Janice Stanger speaking about it at conferences, in various documentaries and on YouTube videos.
Contrary to this pervasive obsession with high protein, the Nobel Prizes for 2016 and 2018 point out that occasional periods of protein deficiency detoxes our body and helps build immunity by a process called autophagy.
Dr. Honzo (2018 Nobel Laureate) has demonstrated that prolonged fasting or feeding cancer patients diet devoid in protein for stretches of 5-10 days can help build immunity to fight cancer.
Protein is so abundant in nature that almost all plant based foods have it. Potatoes have 5-6 percent, rice has 7-8 percent, watermelon has 7 percent. The importance of this lesson is this:
“One should just stop worrying about protein while on pbwf diet and focus on fiber instead.”
Another misconception about protein is that eating protein builds muscles. Muscles develop when you exercise them. The famous gladiators of the Roman period 2,000 years ago, who had to fight for life every day, were all vegans. Please watch the documentary “The Game Changers”. This is also discussed in the documentary “Forks over Knives”.
Please watch the talk about dangers of excessive protein in the following video by Dr. Janice Stanger who is a Professor at the University of California, SanFrancisco (UCSF).
nandha Dynamic
Jan 23, 2022, 8:21:44 AM1/23/22
to nandha
2.9 MILK & DAIRY PRODUCTS
In the documentary Forks over Knives this subject has been covered in great detail explaining how protein in milk (casein) causes cancer tumor to grow. We will discuss it in more detail when we cover the subject of cancer. Milk is also heavily implicated in breast cancer and prostate cancer. Also a leading cause of type-1 diabetes and arthritis. Milk consumption is a leading cause of auto immune diseases which get initiated when the milk protein leaks through our gut lining and enters blood stream without being metabolized in the liver.
Humans are the only creatures on earth who consume milk of another species. Also we are the only creatures who continues to consume milk beyond infancy. I do not know how it got started. I suspect it happened thousands of years ago, during a period of famine, when people were dying of hunger. Some body tried drinking cow’s milk and survived. From then on it became a common practice and it must have led to domestication of cows.
While we are on the subject of milk, I might as well confess that this is one topic where I feel most conflicted. The current plant based whole food movement is opposed to consuming milk products and there are numerous studies that justify that but Ayurveda, our cultural heritage and ancient wisdom recommends it strongly. Although some have pointed out to me that certain practitioners of Ayurveda in Kerala recommend against it.
Most recommendations of PBWF doctors are compatible with Ayurveda with the exception of milk and Ghee. This is how I look at it:
1. The way the cows are raised in today’s industrialized world, is very different from even 60 years ago in India. Some key differences are:
(1) The dairy cows are kept pregnant through artificial insemination.
(2) They are fed pesticide ridden food which is unfit for human consumption.
(3) They are injected with growth hormones to increase milk yield and
(4) They are injected with high dosages of antibiotics to keep them infection free in otherwise poor unhygienic conditions.
All these toxic chemicals do show up in the milk they produce and are very harmful to human health.
2. The indigenous varieties of cows in India (ones with a hump on their back) produce milk called A2, which is genetically different and low in fat besides some other differences. This milk is less harmful than buffalo milk but harmful never the less.
3. In olden periods there were no carcinogens in the environment and cancer diseases were not there or rare. So even if Casein (protein in cow’s milk) was consumed in diet, it didn’t result in ill tumor growth.
4. The life expectancy was low and age of 75-80 was considered long life. Very few lived beyond that (I am not talking about puranic period where there are unsubstantiated stories of people living for 400 years). Today we are talking about increasing life expectancy of retired people (over 65) to 100+ years. In Blue Zones around the world like Okinawa Japan, Sardinia Italy and Loma Linda California, many people live to be 100+.
I have discussed this subject face to face with Dr. Colin Campbell, Dr. Esselston, Dr. John Mcdugall and Dr. Gregor. They all are against consuming milk or milk products in today’s world. Dr. Collin Campbell conceded that if total protein in diet is less than 8% then milk may be okay, as long as it is procured from grass fed free range cows. Total protein intake of 8% (from all sources) is the cutoff point where tumor begins to grow. What this essentially means is that during periods of famine, the milk would not be harmful.
So this is how I have resolved the conflict in my life. I do no drink milk or eat milk products on daily basis. I consume nut milks, soya milk, coconut milk and oat milk. I consume small amount of cultured yogurt occasionally as exceptions (with khitchri, pulao, or Kadhi). I eat on average 1/2 scoop of ice cream per month to makes my grand kids happy. In essence what I am saying is that use milk products as exception only.
In the documentary Forks over Knives this subject has been covered in great detail explaining how protein in milk (casein) causes cancer tumor to grow. We will discuss it in more detail when we cover the subject of cancer. Milk is also heavily implicated in breast cancer and prostate cancer. Also a leading cause of type-1 diabetes and arthritis. Milk consumption is a leading cause of auto immune diseases which get initiated when the milk protein leaks through our gut lining and enters blood stream without being metabolized in the liver.
Humans are the only creatures on earth who consume milk of another species. Also we are the only creatures who continues to consume milk beyond infancy. I do not know how it got started. I suspect it happened thousands of years ago, during a period of famine, when people were dying of hunger. Some body tried drinking cow’s milk and survived. From then on it became a common practice and it must have led to domestication of cows.
While we are on the subject of milk, I might as well confess that this is one topic where I feel most conflicted. The current plant based whole food movement is opposed to consuming milk products and there are numerous studies that justify that but Ayurveda, our cultural heritage and ancient wisdom recommends it strongly. Although some have pointed out to me that certain practitioners of Ayurveda in Kerala recommend against it.
Most recommendations of PBWF doctors are compatible with Ayurveda with the exception of milk and Ghee. This is how I look at it:
1. The way the cows are raised in today’s industrialized world, is very different from even 60 years ago in India. Some key differences are:
(1) The dairy cows are kept pregnant through artificial insemination.
(2) They are fed pesticide ridden food which is unfit for human consumption.
(3) They are injected with growth hormones to increase milk yield and
(4) They are injected with high dosages of antibiotics to keep them infection free in otherwise poor unhygienic conditions.
All these toxic chemicals do show up in the milk they produce and are very harmful to human health.
2. The indigenous varieties of cows in India (ones with a hump on their back) produce milk called A2, which is genetically different and low in fat besides some other differences. This milk is less harmful than buffalo milk but harmful never the less.
3. In olden periods there were no carcinogens in the environment and cancer diseases were not there or rare. So even if Casein (protein in cow’s milk) was consumed in diet, it didn’t result in ill tumor growth.
4. The life expectancy was low and age of 75-80 was considered long life. Very few lived beyond that (I am not talking about puranic period where there are unsubstantiated stories of people living for 400 years). Today we are talking about increasing life expectancy of retired people (over 65) to 100+ years. In Blue Zones around the world like Okinawa Japan, Sardinia Italy and Loma Linda California, many people live to be 100+.
I have discussed this subject face to face with Dr. Colin Campbell, Dr. Esselston, Dr. John Mcdugall and Dr. Gregor. They all are against consuming milk or milk products in today’s world. Dr. Collin Campbell conceded that if total protein in diet is less than 8% then milk may be okay, as long as it is procured from grass fed free range cows. Total protein intake of 8% (from all sources) is the cutoff point where tumor begins to grow. What this essentially means is that during periods of famine, the milk would not be harmful.
So this is how I have resolved the conflict in my life. I do no drink milk or eat milk products on daily basis. I consume nut milks, soya milk, coconut milk and oat milk. I consume small amount of cultured yogurt occasionally as exceptions (with khitchri, pulao, or Kadhi). I eat on average 1/2 scoop of ice cream per month to makes my grand kids happy. In essence what I am saying is that use milk products as exception only.
I do allow some exceptions but only after you have reversed your chronic diseases and gotten off all medications.
You have to make your own exceptions. But if you are like Bill Clinton with open hear surgery and multiple stents or you are suffering from stage 2/3 cancer please refrain totally.
For Indian style tea and coffee, Oat milk is the best. We make oat milk by adding one cup rolled oats, 1/4 cup cashew and 4 cups of water in a blender. It has a shelf life in refrigerator of 4 days. Other favorites at our home are coconut milk for puddings and almond and soya milk. Peanut milk for yogurts is good for Indian dishes like Raita and Kadhi.
There are many choices for vegan milk and most of them if made at home are very healthy. A video on how to make alternate milks is posted below.
Here are 12 Reasons Why Milk is Bad for You
https://www.peta.org/living/food/reasons-stop-drinking-milk/
Dairy: 6 Reasons Why You Should Avoid it All Costs
https://youtu.be/0O-ehIkwGME
What the Dairy Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know
https://youtu.be/h3c_D0s391Q
Does Cassein in Milk Exposure Trigger Type 1 Diabetes?
https://youtu.be/bDZHBaiSHWo
Milk, Thpe1 Diabetes and Autoimmune Disease
https://youtu.be/MScEmjsVXNE
Is Milk Bad for Diabetes?
https://youtu.be/LZO7ORbtk-Y
Ten Homemade Nut & Nondairy Milks
https://youtu.be/UWM_SpUndV8
You have to make your own exceptions. But if you are like Bill Clinton with open hear surgery and multiple stents or you are suffering from stage 2/3 cancer please refrain totally.
For Indian style tea and coffee, Oat milk is the best. We make oat milk by adding one cup rolled oats, 1/4 cup cashew and 4 cups of water in a blender. It has a shelf life in refrigerator of 4 days. Other favorites at our home are coconut milk for puddings and almond and soya milk. Peanut milk for yogurts is good for Indian dishes like Raita and Kadhi.
There are many choices for vegan milk and most of them if made at home are very healthy. A video on how to make alternate milks is posted below.
Here are 12 Reasons Why Milk is Bad for You
https://www.peta.org/living/food/reasons-stop-drinking-milk/
Dairy: 6 Reasons Why You Should Avoid it All Costs
https://youtu.be/0O-ehIkwGME
What the Dairy Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know
https://youtu.be/h3c_D0s391Q
Does Cassein in Milk Exposure Trigger Type 1 Diabetes?
https://youtu.be/bDZHBaiSHWo
Milk, Thpe1 Diabetes and Autoimmune Disease
https://youtu.be/MScEmjsVXNE
Is Milk Bad for Diabetes?
https://youtu.be/LZO7ORbtk-Y
Ten Homemade Nut & Nondairy Milks
https://youtu.be/UWM_SpUndV8
2.10 HOW DO I GET CALCIUM ?
After discussion about milk the following question always is “how do I get my calcium?” This is one of the most frequently asked questions I face. Even though it is covered in the very first documentary I recommend “Forks over Knives” and the second video by Dr Janice Stranger about the food myths. The two reasons for this question are that it is ingrained in our mind that calcium is needed for strong bones and secondly that milk is the best source of calcium. Both of which are incorrect.
The bones do not become strong by eating calcium. Calcium is actually very brittle as any body who has ever used a chalk to write on a black board would know. Bones are made of collagen which are fibrous proteins comprising a honeycomb structure, and an inorganic bone mineral in the form of small crystals. The strength in bones comes from putting stress on this honeycomb structure which we do when we exercise. The more stress we put on the bones the stronger they get.
Milk is not the best source of calcium. On the contrary milk is acidic in nature like all animal foods and causes acidosis. To neutralize this acid the calcium in the body is utilized and this leads to depletion of calcium. Osteoporosis is most common among the countries that consume most dairy. These include US, Canada, Denmark and Sweden. The best sources of calcium are green leafy vegetables. Here are some videos worth watching that deal with the subject. 👇
https://youtu.be/x_CAqpBnd5E
https://youtu.be/eeCmqvzqquU
https://youtu.be/rxnBDDqXSjk
https://youtu.be/hh05yCLzhC4
https://youtu.be/ox49ZWSUEQs
https://youtu.be/h8s8W-fPrus
After discussion about milk the following question always is “how do I get my calcium?” This is one of the most frequently asked questions I face. Even though it is covered in the very first documentary I recommend “Forks over Knives” and the second video by Dr Janice Stranger about the food myths. The two reasons for this question are that it is ingrained in our mind that calcium is needed for strong bones and secondly that milk is the best source of calcium. Both of which are incorrect.
The bones do not become strong by eating calcium. Calcium is actually very brittle as any body who has ever used a chalk to write on a black board would know. Bones are made of collagen which are fibrous proteins comprising a honeycomb structure, and an inorganic bone mineral in the form of small crystals. The strength in bones comes from putting stress on this honeycomb structure which we do when we exercise. The more stress we put on the bones the stronger they get.
Milk is not the best source of calcium. On the contrary milk is acidic in nature like all animal foods and causes acidosis. To neutralize this acid the calcium in the body is utilized and this leads to depletion of calcium. Osteoporosis is most common among the countries that consume most dairy. These include US, Canada, Denmark and Sweden. The best sources of calcium are green leafy vegetables. Here are some videos worth watching that deal with the subject. 👇
https://youtu.be/x_CAqpBnd5E
https://youtu.be/eeCmqvzqquU
https://youtu.be/rxnBDDqXSjk
https://youtu.be/hh05yCLzhC4
https://youtu.be/ox49ZWSUEQs
https://youtu.be/h8s8W-fPrus
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