Spiral wrote: How rare are we? By "we" I mean those of us who consume a diet that is high in relatively unrefined, relatively unprocessed, whole plant foods, low in calorie density, low in sodium, high in fiber and high in nutrient density.
Extremely.
Easily less than 1%. Just look at the national statistics.
Only about 1.5% are vegan and <1% meet the dietary recommendations of the AHA. While this is not a vegan diet, we are much stricter than the AHA guidelines and many choose to be vegan. So how many could we be?
Spiral wrote:Take fiber as just one example. I watched a video over at Dr. Greger's web site titled, "Do vegetarians get enough protein," and it focused, first on protein intake, but more importantly on our population's lack of sufficient fiber in our diets. I believe that the video mentioned some peer reviewed research estimating that less than 3 percent of Americans get the recommended amount of fiber in their diets. .
Yes. In my presentations, I mention how I used to have a 90 minute presentation on fiber alone called, "Fiber: Just Passing Through?" where I went into details about all this.
One of the points I made was that if there is one nutrient we are all truly deficient in and should focus on more than anything, is fiber and getting it in from whole natural foods. I said it would be better than counting calories, cholesterol, saturated fat, nutrients, etc. I also showed how little the intake of fiber has changed over the last 30 years so for all the good people think they are doing, by the marker of fiber, they are making little change.
According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey looking at dietary fiber intake trends in the United States from 1999-2008...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22709768- In 1999, average fiber intake for Adults was 15.6 g/d
- In 2008, average fiber intake for Adults was 15.9 g/d
National recommendations are around 30 grams/day though we should be getting in a minimum of 35-50 grams a day and so I showed how easy it was to do on the right diet and how difficult it was to do if you were on the wrong diet.
While the amount varies, the average fiber per 1/2 cup serving of fruits, vegetables, intact whole grains, starchy vegetables, was ~2.5 grams. And to make it easier and give everyone the benefit of the doubt and to make the math easy, I rounded that up to 3 grams.
And for legumes it is about 6-8 grams.
So, how do you get to minimum of 35? Let's use some basic recommendations that we often hear...
Starchy Veggies/Intact Whole Grains = 6 or more servings per day, which is ~480 calories and 24 grams of fiber.
Non Starchy Vegetables - 4 or servings per servings, which is ~100 calories and 12 grams of fiber
Fruits - 3 or more servings per day, which is ~180 calories and 9 grams of fiber
Legumes - 1 or more serving per day, which is ~110 calories and 6 grams of fiber.
That is a total of 13 servings of starchy veggies/intact whole grains, non starchy veggies, and fruits, which is ~900 calories and 39 grams of fiber. Without rounding up the fiber, it is 32.5
The serving of legumes brings the calories to ~1000 and the fiber to 45 (or 38 without rounding).
While you can exchange a few serving of one group for another, there is no other way to get to the minimum recommended levels of fiber, without consuming about this much of these foods. And that is just the minimum. If we raise the beans to 2-3 servings (1- 1.5 cups), they would contribute 18 grams. We would still need 17 more grams of fiber That is another 6 servings using my rounded up average numbers and 7 using the not rounded ones. So, everyone needs to be including at least 8-13 servings of a variety of minimally processed plant foods a day.
After all, animal products have no fiber so switching from full fat milk to low fat or skim, has no impact on this. Switching from beef to white meat chicken or fish, has no impact. Processed foods average about .5 grams fiber per serving so have little impact if any. Nuts are also fairly low, especially per calorie.
Here is the slide, which is probably 20 or more years old, highlighting this from the old presentation. It is using the Pritikin guidelines. SAD = Standard American Diet, and PEP = Pritikin Eating Plan, RS= recommend serving, Fiber(U) means amount of fiber unprocessed foods, Fiber (R) - means amount of fiber in processed refined foods, D is dairy, LP is lean protein and B is beans.
As you can see, I still have the presentation and may resurrect it one day and modify as that was based on the PEP.
Spiral wrote:Reading information like that and then being confronted with the post you made on "running a prevention based clinic" has made me wonder if it is worth any effort at all to inform friends, family and others about this way of eating. I understand that the situation you are in is different, because you operate in a professional capacity. .
Not completely. I am more than happy to do whatever I can to help those people who want to do this but have no interest in convincing anyone that this is what they should be doing. And, if you want to do this and want my help, than you have to be willing to do the work, make the effort and come to one of the programs or study the material.
Spiral wrote:However, those of us without any credentials, those us who just want to be helpful to others might digest this information and just throw up our hands.
Should we just keep quiet and eat our legumes? Should we just accept the fact that we will always be a tiny, microscopic minority in a sea of unhealthy eaters?
I'd appreciate your perspective on this.
My perspective is almost identical to what Dr Lisle discusses in his presentation, "How To Get Along Without Going Along" and his "seems" strategy and the one expressed in the Twelve Traditions of the 12-step programs, "Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion."
I think you should be a shining example by implementing the program yourself, experiencing the benefits, living your life to the fullest, radiating dynamic health and energy, practicing tolerance & compassion, and if and when someone asks, be willing to help them.
True story... I am out to dinner with my wife and a friend (who had also been a long time patient at one point). After he ordered, he went to the bathroom and my wife said, "OMG, did you see what he ordered?" I said, "Yes, I am sitting right here."
To which she said, "Why then didn't you say anything?" I said, "About what?" She said, "Did you not see what he ordered? It was all unhealthy food that you would not recommend!" I said, "yes, I saw it." And she said, "Well, isn't he your patient??" And I said, "Not tonight. Tonight he is my friend and he did not ask for my help in ordering, so I did not offer it. He knows what to do and if he wanted to do it, he would have. As friends, I don't want him telling me what to order or discuss my diet and I will not tell him what to order or criticize him for what he orders. However, if he asked me for my help and what to order, and was really interested in my help, I would have done whatever I could to help him."
In Health
Jeff
